I Am Kavi

Ages 8 to 12, Grades 3 to 7

Caught between two worlds—a poverty-stricken village and a fancy big-city school—a young Sri Lankan girl must decide who she really is and where she really belongs.

1998, Colombo. The Sri Lankan Civil War is raging, but everyday life must go on. At Kavi’s school, her friends talk about the weekly Top 40, the Backstreet Boys, Shahrukh Khan, Leo & Kate… and who died—or didn’t—in the latest bombing. But Kavi is afraid of something even scarier. She fears that if her friends discover her secret—that she is not who she is pretending to be—they’ll stop talking to her. 

I want to be friends with these / happy, / fearless, / girls / who look like they / belong.

So I could also be / happy, / fearless, / and maybe even / belong.

Kavi’s scholarship to her elite new school was supposed to be everything she ever wanted, but as she tries to find some semblance of normalcy in a country on fire, nothing is going according to plan. In an effort to fit in with her wealthy, glittering, and self-assured new classmates, Kavi begins telling lies, trading her old life—where she’s a poor girl whose mother has chosen a new husband over her daughter—for a new one, where she’s rich, loved, and wanted. This dazzling novel-in-verse from an astonishing new talent introduces readers to a world rarely seen in middle grade, and stars a deeply moving everygirl each and every one of us can relate to. 

That’s when it comes crashing down on me. / I have been spending all my time / since I came here / preparing for the / wrong / test.

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

About the Author

Thushanthi Ponweera is an author and poet from Sri Lanka. Before daring to follow her dream of being published, she was a marketing specialist and entreprenuer. Her writing reflects the frustration she feels at the inequality and injustice she sees around her, and also the deep love she feels for her island home. She currently lives in Colombo with her husband and two children.

Author Hometown: Colombo, Sri Lanka