Uma Krishnaswami is the author of many books for children, and is faculty emerita in the Writing for Children and Young Adults MFA program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. She was born in India and now lives in Victoria, British Columbia.
The Sunshine Project is her latest middle grade fiction novel, completing the trilogy that started with Book Uncle and Me (winner of the ILA Social Justice Literature Award), originally published in 2012. Her other publications include Look! Look! and The Girl of the Wish Garden. She has been nominated twice for the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.
In The Sunshine Project, Anil faces a dilemma when the city decides to build a solar panel factory on the site of a mangrove forest. It’s a triumphant finale to the trilogy about the power of asking the right questions and listening when change comes to your
Interviewed by Emily Byrne
Emily Byrne (EB): The Sunshine Project is part of a trilogy. You published the first book (Book Uncle and Me) back in 2012, and then Birds on the Brain was published last year (2024). What was it like to come back to the story and these characters ten years later?
Uma Krishnaswami (UK): It was really interesting. The gap in time let me go back and read Book Uncle in a totally different way. It was almost easier to read it as a reader, not as someone deeply invested in every word, so I could spot patterns I hadn’t seen before.
Also, I honestly never intended to write a trilogy, or even a sequel. Book Uncle had been out there for over a decade and seemed fine on its own. Going back was a fascinating experience once we decided to continue the story.
EB: I’d love to hear more about how these new sequels came to be.
UK: It actually happened during COVID. Like a lot of writers, I was doing virtual presentations, since everyone was stuck at home. Some kids were in their classroom “bubbles,” some were calling from home. It was all over the place.
I believe it was through the North Vancouver Public Library. We were talking about Book Uncle and Me, and during the Q&A, someone asked, “are you going to write a sequel?”
I kind of offhandedly said, “I don’t know, should I?”
Well, a bunch of kids got pretty excited and said ‘yes,’ and even that I should write three books since there are three kids in the story.
I didn’t want to make a promise right there, but I said I’d think about it.
Since COVID just dragged on and I was between writing projects, I thought maybe it was a good time to go back and reread Book Uncle. When I did, I noticed all these things about the secondary characters that I’d never focused on before.
Now, I’m just sorry I didn’t get the names of those kids who suggested it, because I’d like to thank them!
EB: So, when you were writing Birds on the Brain (the second book), had you decided to make it a full trilogy at that point?
UK: I did. It hadn’t been officially accepted yet, but the groundwork was there, and my publisher was willing to consider it. So in my mind, I was already visualizing it as a trilogy.
What was interesting is that, when you set up secondary characters, they’re often there to spotlight the protagonist. In [Book Uncle], Anil and Reeni’s roles are mostly to support the main character’s story. But rereading, I found little details about them that I could use to expand their stories. I needed to take them out of the context of just being sidekicks, put them within their own families, and allow them to have their own perspectives on this community.
It was a bit like visiting a place you know well, but with a different tour guide. It was really fun.
EB: Anil is the main character in The Sunshine Project. He has such a sweet voice, and I found him so endearing. How would you describe him, and was it fun to write his character?
UK: Yes! He’s very quiet, and my challenge was to write a kid who had been pretty content as a secondary character [in the first two books]. Anil is shy; he avoids being the center of attention, hates having people look at or talk to him, and especially doesn’t like having to speak up. I needed to put him in situations where he would be forced to confront that discomfort.
The field trip scene was a real revelation for me. When I put him on the bus, took him to the beach for the cleanup, I saw all these other layers to him, beyond his defensiveness and his use of karate as a barrier to the outside world. In a way, the setting helped me uncover the character.
EB: There are so many gems sprinkled throughout this novel. There are big, overarching themes, of course, but also lots of little lessons for kids, like ‘the best fight is no fight,’ why it’s important to stay optimistic and deal with problems one step at a time, and how politicians can lie. I was curious how you managed to fit so much into a children’s book without it ever feeling pedantic or like you’re talking down to kids.
UK: I’m so happy to hear you say that! I really didn’t want the book to feel didactic or preachy. Across all three books, I’ve worked hard to stay close to the child narrator’s viewpoint, only revealing the kinds of understandings that would occur to a child in that moment.
The theme about politicians being untrustworthy, or being careful whom you vote for, does run through the story. I think it reflects the reality I’ve seen in the world. I also believe that, while kids can’t vote, they do have voices. And they should use them, because these kids are ‘voters in training.’ They’re learning about the adult world and refusing to pretend it doesn’t affect them or just accept what’s unfair.
Kids have a built-in sense of fairness that comes up all the time in school and on the playground. ‘That’s not fair!’ is something you hear a lot at that age. In the middle grade years, they’re learning to assert themselves and realize the world is much bigger and often less fair than they thought. Those themes are really important to me.
I also love when those little asides or ‘gems’ just kind of show up while I’m writing. Sometimes I only notice them when I go back and reread what I wrote the day before. I tend to write up to the middle of a chapter and then stop, so I won’t face a blank page the next day. That really helps me find those little moments, too.
EB: So do you map out the plot fully, or let the characters surprise you?
UK: I do a very loose outline for these books now. With Book Uncle, I was much more of a ‘seat of the pants’ writer, doing a chapter or so a day and just seeing where the story led me.
Actually, Book Uncle was written in very short lines—almost like mini prose poems. I wouldn’t quite call it a verse novel, but it had that feel.
Then, when Groundwood Books acquired Book Uncle and Me, we ended up re-editing the whole thing. When we did that, I could see how having written it almost in verse, the first round, really sharpened the prose when [we edited it].
So, whenever I would get stuck with book two and book three, I would write those scenes with those lineations. Almost always, I’d find the momentum picking up and the scene would move forward better. Then I’d go back, fix it, and turn it back into prose. That was a little something I learned from the process.
EB: The first book was published in India before North America. Are these new books being published in India as well? Are they coming out concurrently?
UK: Yes, they are coming out almost simultaneously. The Canadian one was a little bit ahead of the Indian release, but it was so close that I was feeding some information back and forth. We were making changes during copy edits—say, for the Groundwood edition, if something came in from the Indian editor, I’d think, ‘oh, that’s a really good point,’ and I’d incorporate it. They’re very close, which was really fun, and both sets of editors were open to this process.
EB: One of the things that stood out to me was that even though the book is set in India, you write as if it’s a given that North American readers will understand the cultural context. It seemed like you assumed a Canadian child could easily be transported into a different culture or country. Can you speak to how you approach writing for children across cultures?
UK: I try really hard to write that way. I focus on my characters, thinking, ‘if the children I’m writing about [were to] read this book, how would it come across to them?’ That keeps me centered and stops me from adding those parallel translations or explanations that can feel forced.
As a child growing up in India, I read a lot of books published in England. I didn’t know what scones or heather were, or why people went to the beach on a summer’s day (which would be unthinkable in India!), but I just accepted those things and kept reading. I think kids will do that if we let them.
So, my solution is to write to my characters, not to an imagined audience.
EB: Your main character Anil is a very dedicated karateka. This is a bit of a silly question, but do you have any karate experience? It seems like you must have at least done some research!
UK: I spent a lot of time watching YouTube videos, but my son took Taekwondo years ago, so I understood the culture of belts and breaking boards. I’d originally thought about using Taekwondo because I knew more about it, but actually karate is a really big deal in India, especially in southern cities like this one. There are some very nice karate studios working with kids and mixed groups in India, so I watched a lot of videos of classes. I hope I captured the flavor of those studios.
Interestingly, the Indian illustrator really connected with Anil’s character and saw a spiritual component to karate in his life. I hadn’t originally thought of Anil as a particularly spiritual child, but the illustrator’s feedback added more depth to the character. It was a lovely experience.
EB: We’ve talked a bit about your writing process. I’m curious—why children’s books?
UK: It’s always been children’s books for me.
I was very much the kind of child reader that Yasmin is in [Book Uncle and Me]. She wants to read a book every day for the rest of her life. I would’ve set that goal if I’d thought it was possible! I didn’t always have enough books, but I read the ones I had over and over. I could lose myself in books; my mother would call me for meals and I literally wouldn’t hear her. I’d write in response to books, as if I were writing back to them.
I was a compulsive reader, but it never occurred to me that I could be a writer, mainly because I never saw anyone like myself in books. Now I realize how meaningful that connection between character and reader is.
I’ve never felt compelled to write for adults; it’s always been for children. Will that change? Maybe, who knows. But there’s still a lot to explore in children’s literature.
EB: And can you tell us about anything you’re working on now?
UK: Yes! Years ago, I wrote a picture book called Monsoon, about waiting for the rains. Now I have a sort of follow-up called Mango Sun, which will be published by Atheneum in the US. It’s about children watching a mango tree flower and fruit and experiencing unseasonal changes in weather. It touches on climate change and mango trees. We just finished a round of edits.