Silas House is the nationally best-selling author of Eli the Good
as well as the award-winning novels Clay’s Quilt, A Parchment of
Leaves, and The Coal Tattoo. He is an associate professor at Berea
College and lives in eastern Kentucky.
Neela Vaswani is the award-winning author of You Have Given Me a
Country and Where the Long Grass Bends. Her work has received an
American Book Award, an O. Henry Prize, and a ForeWord Magazine
Book of the Year Award. She teaches at Spalding University’s MFA in
writing program and is the founder of the Storylines Project with
the New York Public Library. Neela Vaswani lives in New York City.
Even better than reading a refreshingly honest story by one
talented writer is reading one by two such writers. House and
Vaswani alternate between the voices of Meena and River. The two
connect as pen pals, and their letters reveal the unusual
intersections and the stark contrasts in their lives... Readers
will feel confident that their friendship will get them through
whatever lies ahead.
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
This tender and breathtakingly honest story about unlikely
friendships and finding common ground will captivate readers... In
an era when social media permeates every area of our lives, Meena
and River’s old-fashioned camaraderie through letters feels
refreshing and true. Audiences will revel in this lovely story
about a boy and girl who are not so different from one another
after all.
—School Library Journal (starred review)
A finely detailed description of two separate worlds that
demonstrates a deep well of shared humanity.
—Kirkus Reviews
Readers will be held by the kids’ challenges, along with the warm
bond they share.
—Booklist
While at its heart a friendship story, this is also a celebration
of writing, both as a means of processing emotions and as a vehicle
for making the writer more observant of people and places, and both
Meena and River come to appreciate and value the role the letter
writing plays in their own lives over the course of their
relationship. Readers who enjoy differing points of view will
particularly enjoy this old-fashioned yet contemporary
letter-writing exchange.
—Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
SAME SUN HERE takes a novel approach to this topic and reveals to
young readers how authentic conversation and trust between human
beings can bring them together despite all that divides them.
—VOYA
Honest, poignant letters between two 12-year-old pen pals—one
Kentucky born and raised, the other born in India and living in New
York's Chinatown—demonstrate that the most important things in life
are common among us all... A moving novel.
—Shelf Awareness
SAME SUN HERE by Silas House and Neela Vaswani is like a blast of
air conditioning from an open door on a baking hot Manhattan day,
at once refreshing, relieving, sweet and enlivening. With easy,
commanding authority the authors wholly embody the voices of their
two characters, far-flung pen pals River and Meena, delivering a
story that wrenches the reader with its honesty, clarity and
verve.
—The Rusty Key
Written for grades 5 and up, SAME SUN HERE tackles complex societal
ills in a thoughtful, uplifting story frame that will captivate
readers regardless of age.
—Appalachain Voices
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