My Best Friend’s Bangles

Best friends Selvi and Divya each miss their ammas, who live in another country, working in domestic positions and sending the proceeds home. Still, the two girls have each other for riding bikes to school, playing dress-up, and eating pittu with sugar. When Divya one day arrives on a bike wearing rainbow bangles, explaining that they’re gifts from her recently returned amma, Selvi smiles, but “my heart falls with a thump.” Overwhelmed with thoughts of her own amma, she snaps at her friend, an act that sends “those too-bright, too-loud, too-everything bangles” to the ground. Joshi’s digital images suggest bangles clinking through curling waves of rainbow swirls, and the bracelets work as a visual framing device as their bright hues represent a shared rainbow for the reconciled friends in this work of longing and love. An author’s note discusses Sri Lanka’s colonial history. Characters cue as South Asian. Ages 4–8. (June)