Mitali Perkins

In her Bangladesh village, ten-year-old Naimi excels at painting designs called alpanas, but to help her impoverished family financially she would have to be a boy--or disguise herself as one.

Chiko isn't a fighter by nature. He's a book-smart Burmese boy whose father, a doctor, is in prison for resisting the government. When Chiko is forced into the army by trickery, he must find the courage to survive the mental and physical punishment meted out by the training facility's menacing captain. Tu Reh can't forget the image of the Burmese soldiers burning his home and the bamboo fields of his oppressed Karenni people, one of the many ethnic...

When Maria, Juan, and their mother go to the border between California and Mexico to visit their grandmother at Christmas, Maria must devise a way to get Juan's gift over the fence.--

Using humor as the common denominator, a multicultural cast of YA authors steps up to the mic to share stories touching on race.
Listen in as ten YA authors — some familiar, some new — use their own brand of humor to share their stories about growing up between cultures. Henry Choi Lee discovers that pretending to be a tai chi master or a sought-after wiz at math wins him friends for a while — until it comically backfires.

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Twelve-year-old Indian-American Pandita Paul doesn't like change. She's not ready to start middle school and leave the comforts of childhood behind. Most of all, Pandita doesn't want to feel like she's leaving her mother, who died a few years ago, behind. After a falling out with her best friend, Pandita is planning to spend most of her summer break reading and writing in her favorite secret the abandoned but majestic mansion across the street. But...

Air. Water. Earth. Fire. Critically acclaimed author Mitali Perkins paints a sweeping picture of the biblical redemption story in this luminous, lyrical picture book. At the beginning of all things, Creator uses the four elements to make humans. When creation falls into chaos--resulting in greed, war, and devastation--Redeemer comes to fix the mess, using air, water, earth, and fire to rebuild what has been broken. Ultimately, at the end of all things,...

"The kids in these humorous short stories each have a minor superpower they're learning to live with. One can shape-shift--but only part of her body, and only on Mondays. Another can always tell whether an avocado is perfectly ripe. One can even hear the thoughts of the animals in the pet store! But what these stories are really about is their young protagonists "owning" a power that contributes to their individuality, that allows them to find their...