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V. Malar: Greatest Host of All Time
Additional information
| Author | Suma Subramaniam |
|---|---|
| Genre | Middle Grade – Contemporary |
| Release Date | November 5, 2024 |
| Publisher | Candlewick |
Description
V. Malar can’t wait to celebrate the harvest festival Pongal with her cousins from Seattle. But will they have enough in common to make it enjoyable? An illustrated chapter book about extended family and holiday traditions, kicking off a charming new series.
V. Malar loves living on a farm with her parents in a small town in India. And Malar’s absolute favorite time of year, the harvest festival known as Pongal, is finally here! This year’s festival will be different because her aunt, uncle, and cousins from Seattle will be visiting and celebrating with them. Feeling both excited and nervous, Malar promises to be a great host to her cousins. But when Priya and Kamal talk about all the things they have back home, or when they’re not interested in the animals on the farm, Malar finds it hard to keep her patience and be the gracious host she promised she’d be. The cousins clearly don’t start off on the right foot, but after a few clashes, there are some laughs, and Malar realizes that her cousins might just become friends after all. Family and celebrations big and small await in Suma Subramaniam’s sweet story, brought to life by Archana’s Sreenivasan’s friendly illustrations. A glossary of Indian terms and an author’s note about Pongal can be found in the back matter.
About the Author
S
uma Subramaniam’s interests in writing for children are centered around STEM/STEAM related topics as well as India and Indian heritage. When she’s not recruiting by day or writing by night, she’s volunteering for We Need Diverse Books and SCBWI or blogging about children’s books.
Her picture book, Namaste is a Greeting is the winner of the SCBWI Crystal Kite Award. It has also been named one of Bank Street College of Education’s Best Children’s Books of the Year 2023 and has been selected as part of this year’s NYPL Storytime Collection to be read by all 88 branches of the New York Public Library System. It also made the best books of 2022 in The Guardian as well as Read Brightly. Her second book, She Sang for India: How M.S. Subbulakshmi Used her Voice for Change is the New York Public Library’s 2023 Diverse Voices Book, and it is an Honor Book in Toka Box’s top South Asian Children’s Books of 2022 list. Suma is also the contributing author of The Hero Next Door anthology from Penguin Random House which was a finalist for the 2023 Massachusetts Book Award.
Her poems have been published in Poetry Foundation’s first Young People’s Poetry Edition of Poetry Magazine. She lives in Seattle with her family and a dog who watches baking shows. Learn more at https://sumasubramaniam.com.
