SHOOTING KABUL by N.H. Senzai

• Publication Season/Year: Summer 2010
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Release Date: June 22, 2010
• ISBN (hardcover): TBD
• ISBN (paperback): TBD                         

SHOOTING KABUL is about the power of hope, love and perseverance. In early 2001, Fadi and his family hide in a sheltered teashop in a border town between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Staring at the full moon, Fadi recalls the first line of the tattered book he’d found in the black-market, From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler – “Claudia knew that she could never pull off the old-fashioned kind of running away…” Fadi hopes that his family’s escape will be successful – if it isn’t, they’re going to be in an awful lot of trouble. As the truck rolls into pick them up, the Taliban show up, and in the chaos, Fadi’s younger sister, Mariam, is left behind. Settled in the United States as refugees, in a post 9/11 environment, Fadi tries every hare-brained scheme he can think of to find his sister. As he waits to hear if he’s won the grand prize of a photography competition, which would allow them to travel back to the border to look for Mariam, he wonders if he’ll see he beloved younger sister again.

SHINE, COCONUT MOON

• Publication Season/Year: Spring 2009
• Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books/Simon & Schuster
• Release Date: March 1, 2009
• ISBN (hardcover): 978-1416954958
• ISBN (paperback): 1416954953

Samar–a.k.a. Sam–is an Indian-American teenager whose mom has kept her away from her old-fashioned family.  It’s never bothered Sam, who is busy with school, friends, and a demanding boyfriend.  But things change after 9/11.  A guy in a turban shows up at Sam’s house–and turns out to be her uncle.  He wants to reconcile the family and teach Sam about her Sikh heritage.  Sam is eager, but when boys attack her uncle, chanting “Go back home, Osama!,” Sam realizes she could be in danger–and also discovers how dangerous ignorance is.

Kirkus Reviews: “This straightforward and ultimately reassuring novel reads like an older Sikh version of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret and will fill a niche in any school or public library looking to beef up their YA multicultural fiction offerings.”

Publisher’s Weekly: “Debut novelist Meminger raises complex questions of identity, but avoids moralizing or spelling out answers for readers, who will likely be hooked as Samar takes a second look at her relationships with her boyfriend, friends and family, while seeking a better understanding of herself.”

School Library Journal: “Along the way, [the protagonist's] path to self-discovery is riddled with pain, racism, healing, love, and reconciliation. Meminger’s debut book is a beautiful and sensitive portrait of a young woman’s journey from self-absorbed naïveté to selfless, unified awareness.”

The Author: Neesha Meminger
Location: Riverdale, NY

Neesha Meminger was born in India, grew up in Canada, and currently lives in New York City with her family. All of her writing explores the inner landscape of her characters, and how it merges or conflicts with the outer. She writes stories of women and girls defining themselves and shaping their own destinies within the confines of their day to day realities.

Neesha has an undergraduate degree in Media Arts from Ryerson University in Toronto, and an MFA in Creative Writing from the New School for Social Research in New York City.  Her favorite things ever are: Spring and Autumn in the north; a steaming mug of sweet, organic soy latte first thing in the morning; and listening to the orchestra of birds in the morning after dropping her daughter off at school.