• Age: 12 to 18
• Grade: 7 to 12

Honour Book, 2002 Jane Addams Children's Book Award

A 2002 New York Public Library Selection for Books for the Teen Age

Bank Street College of Education's Best Children's Books of the Year, 2002

Cooperative Children's Book Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Choices, 2002

Hey Tara, what's your mother tongue?

Questions like this make fifteen-year-old Tara Mehta's blood boil, especially when asked by a teacher who ought to know better. Yes, her parents were raised in India, but Tara has lived in Ottawa her whole life - she's as Canadian as everybody else. There are much more important things than where her family came from. Jeff, for instance. He's the new guy with the blue eyes and a brain that actually works.

But then she meets her grandmother for the first time. Dadiji fought with Gandhi in the Indian independence movement, and she's horrified to learn that her grandchildren know almost nothing about her heritage. Tara resents her grandmother's attitude until she learns how Dadiji came to join the fight for independence.

Shocked and angered by the history that she's never been taught in school, Tara decides to tell Dadiji's story to her class. In the wake of the violently mixed reactions that follow, Tara comes to realize that most people need to expand their definition of what it means to be a "regular" Canadian - including herself.

Rachna Gilmore is the critically acclaimed Governor General's Award winning author of numerous books with multiple honours and awards. Her publications include picture books, early readers, middle grade and young adult novels, as well as adult fiction. Her books are sold internationally with translations in French, Danish, German, Korean, Dutch, Spanish, Urdu, Bengali, Chinese as well as several other languages.
Rachna's fantasy novel, The Sower of Tales, won the National Chapter IODE Violet Downey Book Award, and was nominated for the Red Maple Award and the Manitoba Young Readers' Choice Award. Her YA novel, A Group of One, (published by Henry Holt, and now available in paperback in Canada, published by Fitzhenry & Whiteside) received a Jane Addams Children's Book Award Honor citation and was included in the New York Public Library's Best Books for the Teen Age list.
A student of life, Rachna loves to explore the ideas that spark and seize her imagination, as well as to play with words. She calls the process of creating books plarking - work, she says, is too tedious and grinding a word to describe the delight of the creative process, and play doesn't quite convey the real time and effort that goes into completing a book, whereas plarking covers it all, especially as it also reflects the joy and song of larking about.
Born in India, Rachna has lived in London, England, Prince Edward Island, and now lives in Ottawa. A skilled and experienced presenter, Rachna loves to share her enthusiasm for reading and writing; she has given readings and workshops in schools, libraries and conferences across the country as well as internationally.
Website: www.rachnagilmore.ca.

Rachna Gilmore's profile page

"The strength of the novel is in its willingness to explore the difficult issue of race in a multicultural classroom or society without observing conventional pieties. . . A Group of One has great potential to raise important questions for its target audience. If read in multicultural classrooms, it will provide an excellent platform for necessary discussions. The biggest bonus of the book is that it is a delight to read. In spite of handling a difficult topic, it never turns dry or didactic. It is crisply written with both sensitivity and humour, captures a teenager's world ably, and has a captivating plot that alternates between family drama and school drama. Tara's story is compelling and sometimes surprisingly poignant. I think young readers will like to hear Tara's story; and if Tara is not really a group of one, then some young readers will find hers an enabling voice."
-- Canadian Literature