You Bring the Distant Near

Longlist, National Book Awards 2017 for Young People's Literature

You Bring the Distant Near by Mitali Perkins book cover
ISBN 9780374304904
Farrar, Straus and Giroux Books for Young Readers / Macmillan Publishers
Mitali Perkins author photo, credit: MCPG
Mitali Perkins

Mitali Perkins has written ten novels for young readers, including Rickshaw Girl (named one of the New York Public Library’s 100 Great Children’s Books) and Bamboo People (a 2011 YALSA Top Ten Fiction for Young Adults title). Her last book, Tiger Boy, won the South Asia Book Award. Mitali was born in Kolkata, India, and has also lived in Bangladesh, England, Thailand, Mexico, Cameroon, Ghana, and the United States. More about this author >

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This elegant young adult novel captures the immigrant experience for one Indian-American family with humor and heart. Told in alternating teen voices across three generations, You Bring the Distant Near explores sisterhood, first loves, friendship, and the inheritance of culture–for better or worse.

From a grandmother worried that her children are losing their Indian identity to a daughter wrapped up in a forbidden biracial love affair to a granddaughter social-activist fighting to preserve Bengali tigers, award-winning author Mitali Perkins weaves together the threads of a family growing into an American identity.

Here is a sweeping story of five women at once intimately relatable and yet entirely new.

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