Release
day for Hope in the Valley! Here I am at the cusp of 13, the same age
as my protagonist PandIta. We moved to a Bay Area suburb, very
fresh-off-the-boat, and I started seventh grade in the middle of the
school year. Not an easy time of life, so I wrote a lot of poetry. I was
able to weave a few of those poems into this novel. Happy publication
day, younger Mitali. We got here together, you and I.
So grateful on publication day for team Hope, including my brilliant editor Grace Kendall, agent extraordinaire Laura Rennert, and the amazing team at Macmillan FSG,