Something I haven’t talked about a lot during this reading challenge is my love of young adult novels. They are my favourite way to escape from a heavy week, or give my mind a little break. That’s why after the last few weeks of deep and difficult reads, I decided to pick a young adult read for my next book; Step Up to the Plate Maria Singh. Written by Uma Krishnaswamy, the book centres around a 9 year old girl named Maria who belongs to a special ‘adha-adha’ community in Yuba City. 

In the 1940s due to strict immigration policies around sponsoring wives from India, many Punjabi immigrants in California married Mexican women and created these half and half (adha-adha) communities. Maria Singh is growing up in one of these unique families during the World War, but all she can think about is playing baseball. She wants more than anything to play on her school’s all-girls team, but her Papi isn’t okay with her wearing pants – let alone shorts, and you can’t play ball in a dress!

Dealing with issues around immigration laws in the 1940s, mistreatment of Japanese, German, and Indian immigrants, and one powerful little girl’s desire to hit a ball out of the park, this was such a feel-good read. I’ve gone into more thoughts on the book and themes in the video review below, and I highly recommend it for young readers. It would even be a great book to read together as a family, or for a class project.

Have you read the book? If you do, please let me know what you think, I love chatting about books!

**************************************************

I’m currently working on a reading challenge – finish 52 books by 52 South Asian authors in 2018. If you are interested in learning more about why I started check out this blog post. Or, to see all of the books I’ve read so far, visit the bookshelf page. And, if you are a book lover yourself, join our book group on Facebook!