A Group of One

Hey Tara, what's your mother tongue?

Questions like this make fifteen-year-old Tara Mehta's blood boil, especially when asked by a teacher who ought to know better. Yes, her parents were raised in India, but Tara has lived in Ottawa her whole life - she's as Canadian as everybody else. There are much more important things than where her family came from. Jeff, for instance. He's the new guy with the blue eyes and a brain that actually works.

But then she meets her grandmother for the first time. Dadiji fought with Gandhi in the Indian independence movement, and she's horrified to learn that her grandchildren know almost nothing about her heritage. Tara resents her grandmother's attitude until she learns how Dadiji came to join the fight for independence.

Shocked and angered by the history that she's never been taught in school, Tara decides to tell Dadiji's story to her class. In the wake of the violently mixed reactions that follow, Tara comes to realize that most people need to expand their definition of what it means to be a "regular" Canadian - including herself.

Rachna Gilmore is the author of many highly acclaimed children’s books, including Lights for Gita, and Roses for Gita. Her picture book A Screaming Kind of Day won the Governor General’s Literary Award. She is also the author of two early readers in the First Flight Readers series: Fangs and Me and Ellen’s Terrible TV Troubles. Her books have been translated into several languages, including Urdu, Chinese and Tamil. Born in India, Rachna now lives in Ottawa, Ontario, with her husband, two daughters, and cat.