Maya Running

The small golden statue of the Hindu elephant god, Ganesh, hardly looks like an all-knowing Granter of Wishes. But Ganesh is more powerful than he looks, and he’s about to send a young girl on a magical journey of self-discovery.It’s 1978, and Maya Mukherjee is the only brown-skinned middle schooler in her tiny Manitoba town. Born in India and raised in the land of moose and snow, she feels neither Indian enough for Indians nor Canadian enough for Canadians. She longs to fit in, and she yearns for Jamie Klassen, the local bad boy with the John Travolta strut.Then Maya’s beautiful cousin Pinky arrives from India bearing the scent of sandalwood and her most treasured possession—the statue of Ganesh. When Pinky steals Jamie’s heart, Maya pleads with Ganesh to remove all obstacles to her happiness, a plea that backfires in hilarious and painful ways. She must journey across continents to find the truth, her culture, and herself.In this delightful debut, first published over a decade ago by Wendy Lamb Books/Random House and now available again as a new edition, Anjali Banerjee offers a fresh perspective on universal hopes and dreams, as narrated by an insightful girl with an irrepressible imagination.