Mitali Perkins

She is the author of a number of YA novels, including three that have been on the Briscoe summer reading list:

• Bamboo People (2013 list) - Two Burmese boys, one a Karenni refugee and the other the son of an imprisoned Burmese doctor, meet in the jungle and in order to survive, they must learn to trust each other.
• Monsoon Summer - Secretly in love with her best friend and business partner Steve, fifteen-year-old Jazz must spend the summer away from him when her family goes to India during that country's rainy season to help set up a clinic.
• Secret Keeper - Asha, a tomboy at the advanced age of 16, feels thwarted in the home of her extended family in Calcutta, where she, her mother, and sister must stay, after her father dies.

She has recently edited and published Open Mic: Riffs on Life Between Cultures in Ten Voices, a collection of humorous stories (both fiction and nonfiction) by 10 different YA authors who share stories touching on race.

She has also written short stories and several other books, including a shorter book, Rickshaw Girl. (Summary: In her Bangladesh village, ten-year-old Naima excels at painting designs called alpanas, but to help her impoverished family financially, she would have to be a boy, or disguise herself as one.)

Biography

Mitali was born in India and immigrated to the States with her parents and two sisters when she was seven. Her name, “Mitali” means “friendly" in Bengali. She says she has had to live up to her name because her family moved so much — she’s lived in India, Ghana, Cameroon, England, New York, Mexico, California, Bangladesh, Thailand, and Massachusetts.

Mitali studied political science at Stanford University and Public Policy at U.C. Berkeley before becoming a YA author. She lived in the Boston area, in Newton, for many years, and recently moved back to California.