Minni is very brave, determined, and resilient despite her circumstances. I think more than tutor, we need to have conversations, communicate, learn what they are thinking and feeling and process together. They have access to information that we didn’t when we were their age. I think middle schoolers are watching and learning whether we educate them or not.
Do you believe because of the world we live in right now it’s important to educate young readers on these types of issues? Going off of the last question, middle grade has changed a lot in the last few years to incorporate more diverse stories and tackle more complex real-world issues. It’s what I did and continue to do as a reader. These kids owned the characters as if they were real. They were delightful, sincere, committed to the words on the page and thoughtful.
I enjoyed speaking to middle school children. I’ve had the opportunity to interact with thousands of middle schoolers who’d read Count Me In in their classroom, and sometimes across the school. Why did you choose to write this as a middle grade story as opposed to young adult, adult or a children’s book? My outlines though, as always, changed and evolved in the process of writing. I outlined using the three-act structure it works for me. I brainstormed, scribbling on a yellow legal pad for weeks or it could have been months, until Minni emerged. I explored the water crisis and the work being done by dedicated organizations like .Īt some point, I forced myself to emerge from the research rabbit hole and started to focus on discovering my characters and their story. In January 2020, I returned to Mumbai to visit my father, and to revisit the neighborhoods where I’d worked, and talk to people from all walks of life. What was your process for outlining and writing Thirst ? I knew that this story needed to be told. When I learned that 700 million plus people around the world didn’t have access to clean drinking water, I was shocked.
Water scarcity was an issue then, and it’s possibly worse now. Many decades ago, I worked in a community health center in a neighborhood that was very similar to Minni’s. Can you tell us about what inspired this book and the research process that went into portraying these circumstances and characters as accurately as possible?
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