Review: American as Paneer Pie

Title: American as Paneer Pie
Author: Supriya Kelkar
Publisher: Aladdin
Pages: 320
Review copy: Digital ARC via Netgalley
Availability: On shelves now

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

My review:  Lekha is struggling with her identity in some ways. She loves many aspects of her culture, but she feels like she needs to be one person at school and another at home. She tries to keep her worlds from colliding because she doesn't want to give anyone more reasons to see her as other. With Avantika standing up to bullies, Lekha starts to take a hard look at how she is moving through life.

This is a very relatable middle grade novel. Bullies can be anywhere and will look for any difference or weakness so readers will likely have experienced something similar even if they are not part of an immigrant family. For those who are an immigrant or whose family has immigrated in this generation or the previous one, I'm sure they will see themselves or other family members here in the pages.

Beyond Lekha's personal identity questions, there are also some fairly serious questions in the community. A politician is running a campaign with the major point being that immigrants are stealing jobs and need to go back to where they came from. This hateful rhetoric is making Lekha and others unsafe in their own community.

Beyond that, it's a book about friendship, family, and oh my goodness - the food. There are so many descriptions and mentions of food. I was so hungry while reading. I was hoping for a recipe and was not disappointed. A recipe for the Paneer Pie mentioned in the title is included at the end. Books with recipes are a particular favorite of mine. 

Recommendation: This is a lovely middle grade book that I highly recommend. It deals with some particularly difficult topics, but not in an overwhelming way. The friendship and love are comforting while they still face tough situations that are unfortunately very timely.