The Namesake For Teens

I'm posting from KnowFat! restaurant in Bedford, Massachusetts, where I stopped on the way back from an author appearance in Carlisle. (I'm doing a flurry of school visits -- Wednesday, Wickford, RI, Friday, Andover, MA, etcetera -- don't panic, editors, if you're checking in, I'm still carving out time to write.)

On another note, here's a great review for teens of the movie Namesake from Word, the official blog of Weekly Reader's Writing Magazine, written by Sandhya Nankani. And check out this touching account of Ms. Lahiri's parents seeing the film.

Trivia
: Did you know that Jhumpa Lahiri officially uses her nickname because a kindergarten teacher opted not to call her "Neelanjana" or "Sudeshna," which were her two legal names? After this discussion, though, I've decided to veer away from a recent surge of cynicism and give people the benefit of the doubt, so perhaps the teacher was trying to ease the to-school transition by using the at-home pet name. And then it stuck.