Humorous, Emigration & Immigration, Multigenerational 

Nominated for the National Book Award | Walter Award Honor for Teen Literature | PW Best Book of the Year | SLJ Best Book of the Year | Horn Book Fanfare List | Shelf Awareness Best Book of the Year | NYPL Best Book of the Year | Boston Globe Best Book of the Year | Six starred reviews: ★ Horn Book ★ School Library Journal ★ Publishers Weekly ★ Booklist ★ Shelf Awareness ★ VOYAFive girls. Three generations. One great American love story. You Bring the Distant Near explores sisterhood, first loves, friendship, and the inheritance of culture--for better or worse. Ranee, worried that her children are losing their Indian culture; Sonia, wrapped up in a forbidden biracial love affair; Tara, seeking the limelight to hide her true self; Shanti, desperately trying to make peace in the family; Anna, fighting to preserve her Bengali identity--award-winning author Mitali Perkins weaves together a sweeping story of five women at once intimately relatable and yet entirely new."Perkins tells a nuanced, quintessentially American story. She affectionately traces four young women's interrelated yet distinct paths to determining their identities, and, later in the book, adds a fifth. Ranee, the Das family matriarch, has long lived according to Bengali tradition. In her 60s, she embarks on a process of discovery familiar to many immigrants who move to this country as adults: She reshapes herself from the blended clay of her native and adopted homes." -- Chicago Tribune - from Amzon