Karthik Delivers

By: Sheela Chari

Narrated by: Varun Sathi

Karthik Raghavan is good at remembering things. Like his bike routes. Or all the reasons he likes Juhi Shah—even if she doesn’t know he exists. It doesn’t help that she seems to have a crush on his archnemesis, Jacob Donnell, whose only job is to humiliate Karthik (and get his name wrong).

Karthik’s luck changes when he agrees to be in a play about the famous musician Leonard Bernstein. But he can’t tell his parents. The family store is in jeopardy and they need him delivering groceries on his bike to help save it. His mom is also worried about the financial crisis, and she’s convinced that studying hard is the only way to succeed. But Karthik is having fun being Lenny. Besides, what if acting is Karthik’s special talent? And what if acting is the only way to catch Juhi’s attention? With all the pressure from his family, will Karthik be able to imagine and hope when he’s not sure what will happen next?

Moving and heartfelt, this middle-grade novel from Sheela Chari, the award-winning author of Finding Mighty, is about finding your place by following your heart.

©2022 Sheela Chari (P)2022 Recorded Books

unique book

i liked this book, i thought it was unique. i do think there’s too much going on, though. i think there are too many characters each with their own story and each with their own arc. it got kind of tiring to keep up with everyone. i also think juhi has no redeeming qualities. i feel like she is either a perfectly fine friend or she’s a bad friend. i was never really impressed with her, so it was hard for me to see why karthik liked her so much. we just kind of start off with karthik liking her bc she’s pretty, and then… she doesn’t really do anything. she has her own arc too that’s related to her cooking and the restaurant, but it just fizzles out once the restaurant burns down. i can’t really name one good thing she did while there are definitely times where she let karthik down. so in the end where they’re holding hands, i was like, “you can find better people, karthik.” anyway ill recommend this book to my students just bc it’s so unique