Red, White, and Whole

In 1983, thirteen-year-old Reha lives between two worlds. At school she is the only Indian American student, a girl with a weekday best friend named Rachel and a possible crush on a classmate named Pete. On weekends she belongs to her parents' close-knit community, where her friend Sunny and the family's traditions wait for her. Reha often chafes at her parents' expectations, but on the night of the middle school dance her mother is taken to the hospital and diagnosed with leukemia. As the illness reshapes everything, Reha tries to hold her family together and to find a way to be wholly herself. Told in verse, Rajani LaRocca's novel received a Newbery Honor.