Category: Honorable Mention

Ganesha Goes Green

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Prema is looking forward to the annual Ganesh Chaturthi festival, but her anticipation is marred - her mother has become sick from the chemicals leached into the river by the very plaster Ganesha statues used to celebrate the holiday! While walking by the riverbank, Prema has an idea. Using the clay from the river to build the Ganesha statues will let the people celebrate as usual, while also preserving the health of the river water. Though it takes her many tries, and the help of her friends, Prema creates enough clay Ganesha statues to make a difference in her village’s celebrations. This colorful picture book raises awareness of ecological issues surrounding the festival. (Grades PK-3)

The People of the Indus and the Birth of Civilization in South Asia

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The People of the Indus is a unique, well-researched approach to the history of a region. The authors transform a historical period into an engaging graphic novel. The reader will willingly visualize their way through this history. (Grades 7-9)

Bharatanatyam in Ballet Shoes

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A young girl named Paro comes from a family of Bharatanatyam dancers, and feels out of place at her first ballet class. The other students seem more skilled and knowledgeable, and her background in Bharatnatyam seems like an obstacle to becoming a beautiful ballerina. With help from the dance teacher and her mother, Paro and her classmates all come to appreciate and celebrate Bharatanatyam. Beautifully illustrated and rich with historical connections, this book provides representation to South Asians in a space where they are not typically seen or encouraged. (Grades 1-2)

Words in the Dust

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Zulaikha, a thirteen-year-old girl in Afghanistan, faces a series of frightening but exhilarating changes in her life as she defies her father and secretly meets with an old woman who teaches her to read, her older sister gets married, and American troops offer her surgery to fix her disfiguring cleft lip. (Grade 6 & up)

Step Up to the Plate, Maria Singh

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Softball, World War II and prejudice come together in an historical fiction title that takes place in Yuba City, CA, in 1945. Fifth-grader Maria, whose father is from India and mother is from Mexico, fights to save her baseball field while helping to fight injustice against her intercultural family. (Grades 4-8)

Machher Jhol

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Gopu finds courage as he travels through the bustling crowds, the market, and traffic of Calcutta, to gather ingredients for his grandma to cook his father’s favorite dish—fish curry (machher jhol). The illustrations invite the reader to travel along with Gopu, and hope that the special dish is just the medicine Gopu’s father needs to feel well again. (Grades K-5)

Following My Paint Brush

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Following My Paint Brush is the story of Dulari Devi, a domestic helper who went on to become an artist in the Mithila style of folk painting from Bihar, eastern India. (Grade 5 & under)

Small Acts of Amazing Courage

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In 1919, independent-minded Rosalind lives in India with her English parents, and when they fear she has fallen in with some rebellious types who believe in Indian self-government, she is sent “home” to London, where she has never been before and where her older brother died, to stay with her two aunts. (Grade 6 & above)

Sita’s Ramayana

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The Ramayana, one of the greatest legends of ancient India, is presented in the form of a visually stunning and gripping graphic novel, told from the perspective of the queen, Sita. (Grade 6 & above)

No Ordinary Day

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Valli has always been afraid of the people with leprosy living on the other side of the train tracks in the coal town of Jharia, India, so when aa encounter with a doctor reveals she too has the disease, Valli rejects help and begins a life on the streets. (Grade 6 & above)