American as Paneer Pie

By: Supriya Kelkar

Narrated by: Priya Ayyar

As the only Indian American kid in her small town, Lekha Divekar feels like she has two versions of herself: Home Lekha, who loves watching Bollywood movies and eating Indian food, and School Lekha, who pins her hair over her bindi birthmark and avoids confrontation at all costs, especially when someone teases her for being Indian.

When a girl Lekha’s age moves in across the street, Lekha is excited to hear that her name is Avantika and she’s Desi, too! Finally, there will be someone else around who gets it. But as soon as Avantika speaks, Lekha realizes she has an accent. She’s new to this country, and not at all like Lekha.

To Lekha’s surprise, Avantika does not feel the same way as Lekha about having two separate lives or about the bullying at school. Avantika doesn’t take the bullying quietly. And she proudly displays her culture no matter where she is: at home or at school.

When a racist incident rocks Lekha’s community, she realizes she must make a choice: continue to remain silent or find her voice before it’s too late.

©2020 Supriya Kelkar (P)2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Predictable but enjoyable!

I listened to this because my 11 yo daughter was reading it for an online kids book club discussion. I learned a lot! The story is thoughtfully told, with predictable yet enjoyable growth of the main characters. Narrator was excellent! Helped me understand pronunciation of certain words and names.

How you can't change people's mind and keep the fireds you have and you need to stand up for yourself.

It was a very interesting and Inspiring story. I would like to read the other book and now I want all the food that they maded