• Age: 8 to 12
• Grade: 3 to 7

Mina, 11, enjoys playing computer games and watching TV, and has decidedly mixed feelings about her Indian heritage. She loves her Nanaji (grandfather), but is sometimes embarrassed by his old-fashioned ideas and customs.

When she overhears the most popular girl at school refer to Nanaji as "a stupid old geek who can't even talk right," Mina is hurt and incensed. She vows to get revenge during her family's annual party celebrating Holi, the Indian festival of color.

Instead of squirting Ashley with the traditional harmless colored powders that are the hallmark of the celebration, Mina plans to barrage her foe with a concoction that will leave a more permanent impression. In the end, the scheme backfires, and Nanaji helps his granddaughter to see that her stunt is less about revenge than about coming to terms with her own ambivalent feelings toward him.

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