Parenthetical

Jazz runs a business in Berkeley with Steve, her best friend and longtime pine-object. (They sell personalized postcard photos of local landmarks to ex-hippies, which I think is hilarious.) She’s psyched to spend the summer growing their business and doing some more quality pining over Steve. Until her mom, do-gooder extraordinaire, announces that she has received a grant to start a clinic at the orphanage where she was raised. The whole family is off to India for the summer!

Jazz, her brother, and her dad are proud of Mom, but they’ve never taken part in her charitable ventures. Jazz, in particular, had a bad experience with a homeless woman she hired to work at her business, and has now firmly decided that she’s “not cut out to be a do-gooder.” She’s so determined that this is the wrong path for her that even when her dad and brother join her mom at the orphanage with projects of their own, she avoids the place like the plague. (This was the one note that rang false to me — Jazz’s refusal to have anything to do with the orphanage felt contrived and heavy-handed.)

Jazz is lonely and depressed and sure her summer is going to suck, until she befriends Danita, a girl her age from the orphanage who’s cooking for her family for the summer. Danita has a business idea of her own, and Jazz discovers that her talent for business can help people in need, too.

This book could easily have begun and ended with, “I’m going to write a book that showcases the value of small business loans to women in developing countries!” Or, “I’m going to write another book about a girl finding herself and falling in love with her best guy friend, because there really aren’t enough books like that!”

Instead we get a javelin-throwing business owner, a little brother obsessed with bug collecting, a well-run orphanage that is not to be pitied, and an endearing love interest — plus flawed, lovable characters and some delicious, glowing descriptions of India, Indian fashion, and Indian FOOD! (Can Danita come to my house and make some tea for me, too?) It’s a warm, fuzzy book that it would be hard not to love.

I’d had Mitali Perkins on my list for a long time, and was even more embarrassed that I’d never read any of her books when I had the pleasure of meeting her while wandering the exhibit hall at ALA this January. Now I can’t wait to read my next Mitali book!

Also reviewed at: Fluttering Butterflies, Chicken Spaghetti, and the kindred-spirit-named Semicolon Blog.