Abby Spencer Goes to Bollywood by Varsha Bajaj

Please talk about the power of stories that helped you adjust to a different culture. Then you crossed the Mississippi River and felt as if you’d visited the river before, with Tom Sawyer and Huck Fin, and that Mark Twain had, that day, made you feel less alone and less scared. I was charmed and intrigued when I read about how nervous and scared you were on that first car ride from the airport in St. You arrived in the US in 1986 for grad school. The We Need Diverse Books movement has helped many authors get published, and it’s a refreshing change. Veera Hiranandani, Mitali Perkins, Padma Venkatraman, Samira Ahmed, and Roshni Chokshi are some of my favorite Indian writers for young readers. If you haven’t read them, find them, you have a treat in store. Some of my favorite Indian writers of adult fiction are Jhumpa Lahiri, Vikram Chandra, Manil Suri, and Arundhati Roy. They were comic books that were based on stories from Indian mythology. I also read the Amar Chitra Katha series. I read the classics, Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, Tom Sawyer. They were the books that were available to me. Enid Blyton was a beloved British children’s writer. I grew up on a staple diet of Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys. I wish I’d had access to a remarkable public library system like we have in America when I was a child. Which Indian authors would you recommend to Texas readers who’ve not read Indian literature? Please talk about what you liked to read growing up and the authors that spoke to you. You grew up in Mumbai, India, before coming to the United States as a graduate student. Kathi Appelt has always been generous to me, as she is with all Texas writers. Our children are witnesses and trying to process life just as we are.

Unfortunately, I read other stories like it, but at the same time there were voices speaking out against hate and for tolerance. In 2015, a Sikh physician in New York City was attacked and called a terrorist. Varsha Bajaj : Count Me In is an uplifting story of a community supporting one of its own. Kathi Appelt wrote that she wouldn’t be surprised if Count Me In “started a movement of its own.” Please tell us about your book and your inspiration for writing it. Bajaj, your latest book is Count Me In (Nancy Paulsen Books, 2019), a middle-grade novel about the power of families and friendship to overcome hatred and racism.

Abby Spencer Goes to Bollywood by Varsha Bajaj