Great Women, Great Awards

Let's dream a bit about our posthumous presence in the world of children's literature. If your name were to be affiliated with a book award someday, what criteria would you want to see define the selection process? Stories that feature the empowerment of women? Novels that promote peace or social justice? Or would you want your name to honor books that instruct and delight at the same time, like author John Newbery, who adopted John Locke's motto deluctando monemus as his vocational vision?

It's always an honor when your book is nominated for or wins an award, but this year four kudos have special meaning because they're named after a quartet of my personal heroes -- Amelia Bloomer, women's rights advocate, Jane Addams, founder of Hull House, Julia Ward Howe, abolitionist and poet, and Maud Hart Lovelace, author of my beloved Betsy-Tacy books (I was recently informed that Monsoon Summer is one of Minnesota's 2008-2009 Maud Hart Lovelace nominees -- hooray!)

ALA Popular Paperbacks For Young Adults

Hooray for Monsoon Summer, which made this year's list of good reads for teens about families compiled by YALSA librarians. Sometimes one needs a salve, as I did after Little Brown sent the news about Sunita. Thanks to my commenters, calls from Mom and sis after they visited the Fire Escape, and this news from YALSA, I'm de-stung.

New Moon Magazine Book Club

As a mother of sons, I had an eye-opening experience last night: I chatted on-line with the girls of the New Moon Book Club. Insightful comments and witty banter showed up in the chat room, while on another screen the girls asked philosophical questions that sent my own fingers flying. Wow! My mind was racing long after we exited the conversation. Now I'm back to reading masculine non-verbals to glean clues about middle school life and engaging in techno-entertainment chat. Don't get me wrong -- I like conversations about the new X-men movie (can't wait to see it), StarCraft, and whether the PS3 is really going to be worth all that money, and I know girls talk about stuff like that, too. But last night, it was all about Jazz, the protagonist of Monsoon Summer, and being a strong, beautiful girl. Thanks, New Moon!

Monsoon Summer Paperback Release

I must submit my final revision of book one of the Sparrowblog Series to Dutton by April 24th, so I'm taking a break from blogging for a couple of weeks. In the meantime, celebrate with me the 4/11 paperback release of Monsoon Summer. I'll be back out on the Fire Escape on 4/24. Peace be with you.

Monsoon Summer in the UK

I won't be back out on the Fire Escape until Tuesday, April 4th, but I encourage you to browse the archives and leave some traces of your visit via a comment or two. In the meantime, break out the clotted cream and scones: The UK edition of Monsoon Summer will be out Monday, April 3rd from Simon and Schuster! Cheers, everybody! Oh, and by the way, I just read this great review about How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life by Kaavya Viswanathan in USA Today. Congratulations, Kaavya! You go, girl.

Maryland Black-Eyed Susan 2006-07 Book Awards

More good news for Monsoon Summer, which is one of ten YA reads nominated for the state of Maryland's 2006-2007 Black-Eyed Susan Book Awards. Hooray! Texas, Rhode Island, and now Maryland have leap-frogged up my list of "States That Rock."

Rhode Island 2007 Teen Book Nominees

The wonderful librarians of Rhode Island have just published their list of nominees for the 2007 Teen Book Award, and Monsoon Summer made the list. I'm thrilled, of course! As a between-cultures postscript: just as in Scholastic's list of best Asian-American reads and Read Across America suggestions, where I am cited as "Mitala Perkins," my unfamiliar first name is mispelled on Rhode Island's list as "Matali." Would you let it go if this happened to you (a lot)?

Monsoon Summer As Brit Lit

Here's the Simon and Schuster UK cover of Monsoon Summer. Why is there an elephant on the cover? There's no mention of an elephant in the book. I love the colors, though, and the Eye. It's fascinating that publishers routinely assign artists to design new covers when books cross the Atlantic. Are young audiences in the UK that different than their counterparts in America?

Chicago Parent ROCKS!

Monsoon Summer makes the must-buy list of 2005. Hooray for Chicago!

Lamplighter Award

Hooray! Monsoon Summer is one of ten titles nominated for the 2006-2007 Lamplighter Award.

Monsoon Summer: Historical Fiction?

Jim Landers of the Dallas Morning News describes the booming middle class in India:

In the decade from 1993 to 2002, the poverty rate among India's 1.1 billion people dropped from 41 percent to 29 percent. Every year, 30 million to 40 million Indians cross into the middle class.

I'm so grateful for news like this, and it makes me wonder if the heartbreaking urban poverty I described in Monsoon Summer still exists. Especially in a city like Pune, an epicenter of the economic boom. I'd love to hear from someone who has visited there recently — are there still beggars on the streets? Children who are going hungry? Girls who have to worry about dowries, caste, and too-early marriages? I hope not. I hope I have to tell my readers that the book simply isn't accurate as a portrayal of urban India today, but paints a picture of how Pune used to be before it changed. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

Justine Magazine Review

Check out the nice mention of Monsoon Summer in Justine Magazine's October/November 2005 issue. I LOVE this mag's mission statement, so am thrilled about the mention.

A Reviewer's Unfounded Fears

I knew the love couldn't last. I've just read a post by an Indian blogger who accuses me of being "anti-Indian" in Monsoon Summer because I talk about India's poverty, the caste system, and dowries. This guy seems to ignore that there's still a huge gap in India between the rural poor and educated people who live in the fast-changing booming urban economies. I'd like to ask him this: "Have you spent time in India's poor communities, getting to know the women who live there and hearing their stories?" I have, and am so thankful for the friendships I made there. I hate to be cynical, but isn't it often poor, uneducated women in a country who suffer the most, and wealthy men who forget all about them?

I don't blame the dude; part of me is jealous of his strong, starry-eyed defense of India, however misguided. The problem is that nobody likes to hear truth about their own country, land that they love. Americans call us unpatriotic when we write about the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. Indians do the same when it comes to their society. And we immigrants, who aren't equipped for passionate national allegiances, are caught between cultures once again.

As the San Jose Mercury News put it, in Monsoon Summer, I tried to provide "a clear-eyed look at my native India." The blogger worries that American teens will get a bad impression of India. Au contraire, my friend. I, too, love India and strive to introduce young American readers to the beauty of it. As a Kirkus reviewer put it, "Monsoon Summer enlightens readers not familiar with the richness of Indian culture." And, along with trying always to tell a truthful, good tale, that was my goal.

Rejections, Revisions, and Infatuations

Cleaned out my office today and read through my thick Monsoon Summer file. It's chock full of rejections from a long list of editors, as well as myriad revisions featuring characters and plot twists I cut from the final draft.

At one point, a more rebellious version of Jazz had a secret romantic encounter with a black-leather-jacket-clad Indian guy who rode her around the streets of Pune on his motorcycle. I hated to give him up, especially because clutching my husband's waist while perched on the back of his motorcycle is one of my favorite memories of our life in Pune. Ah, well. I have a feeling Mr. Leather Jacket will make an appearance in another novel; I sort of fell for him as I invented him. (Moral Question: Is that wrong? How about my lifelong infatuation with Tolkien's Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings, the books, not the movie? My husband knows all about it; he takes it as a compliment, arguing that I must perceive in him the same noble, heroic qualities that I do in that character.)

The Power of a Good Review

The book of Proverbs says, "There's death and life in the power of the tongue." A writer is tempted to replace the word "tongue" with the words "book review." Sandi Pedersen of Chicago Parent gave me a much-needed boost with her July 2005 review of Monsoon Summer. I'm all geared up to write now, thanks to her kind assessment.