95 books like Radha & Jai's Recipe for Romance

Much as the young adult phase of life is defined by establishing your unique identity, separate from that derived by your school, community, or family, for South Asians this is always a dilemma. South Asians are brought up with very strict parental controls, even though they might want to break away, at a psychological level, they struggle with the idea of sub-consciously pleasing their parents because their own identity is so intrinsically linked to that of their parents. Anuradha explores these very bold, disturbing, and realistic themes that send her protagonist, Rani through an inner journey of emotional turmoil.

When Dimple Met Rishi is one of the first young adult romances featuring Indian American teenagers to garner international acclaim. What makes this story so powerful is not necessarily the romantic plot—although Rishi is quite the swoon-worthy hero, and Dimple is an empowered heroine that commands her audience’s attention straight away. In fact, When Dimple Met Rishi succeeds in its deliberate bridging of the Indian American diaspora, taking the time to emphasize that one can subscribe to both cultures without losing one or the other. As a young adult in this diaspora as well, I can really resonate with Dimple and Rishi’s struggles, and it was a joy to see them overcome these challenges and fall in love all at once.

This is a complex young adult contemporary novel that spotlights Mini as she singlehandedly organizes the wedding-of-the-year for her older sister and her fiancé. Amidst the primary plot of Mini pulling together the wedding and falling in love with the handsome Vir Mirchandani, there is a unifying theme of family. Nandini Bajpai does an incredible job of unpacking the elements of an Indian family, specifically in how they support each other after the loss of a loved one. It was heartwarming to see Mini come into her own by the end of her story, and I highly recommend this book to anyone with a penchant for Indian weddings, Indian culture, and young love. 

Gale Galligan is another artist I’ve followed for a while now and it seems like everything they make just overflows with creativity and charm.

I love how Freestyle combines both dance and yo-yoing, two things I’d never think to put together, and makes it work so seamlessly. The book is just pure, vibrant, fun, and even as an adult I found myself going back and admiring the artwork and movement Gale portrays on every page. This is the kind of book that will have readers coming back again and again just to get wrapped up in its beautiful, vivid world. 

I firmly believe that Halloween books are for everyone, even kids who don’t want their pants scared off or kids who aren’t big readers. In comes Lumberjackula! An adorable graphic novel with a great Halloween esthetic.

Jack is a half vampire, half lumberjack kid who has to make a big decision: should he go to Lumberjack school like Mom wants, or Vampire school like Dad wants? Jack doesn’t want to disappoint either parent, but he has a secret…he wants to dance!

Lumberjackula has all the fun of Halloween without the fear, and the illustrations are adorable. It’s a great book to make sure all of your middle graders get to join in the Halloween fun. (And as a former goth myself, Dad’s band is awesome!)

It concerns the complex and demanding process of becoming proficient in dance procedures. The stages involve becoming deeply mindful of the body. The novice has to become attached and subordinated to a ‘master’ who can of course be a woman. Through these rituals the novice becomes enculturated into the dance aesthetic and the wider culture. The core energy required by dance comes from the abdomen to empower the dancer. The training involves self-cultivation. Eventually the mind no longer hinders the expressivity of the body.

I don’t know if this book necessarily takes place in summer, but it’s centered around one of my favorite ‘African-American Joy Rituals’ - the Electric Slide! Kai agonizes over his failure to get a dance nickname from his very cool grandfather because of his two left feet. When his aunt gets married, he’s determined to conquer the Electric Slide at her reception.

Who doesn’t love a good, all-inclusive line dance? I still remember learning the Electric Slide when I was 6– to this day if I’m at a party and it’s playing, you’ll know where to find me (the dance floor!). Fun book.

This is a perfectly charming story about a boy who is way into ballet and baseball, written in the 1970s, but which still holds up today. And no one ever makes fun of him. Max is not necessarily Queer, but I consider it in the canon of kid’s books that address gender identity.

I am sure many of you already know this visionary philosopher from his ground-breaking The Hero With a Thousand Faces. You may not be aware that Campbell was married to Jean Erdman, one of Martha Graham’s principal dancers in the ‘30s and ‘40s. Campbell’s initiations to modern dance came at Sarah Lawrence College when witnessing Erdman as Graham’s student; and then at Bennington, where Erdman performed with Graham’s company. His own learned background in the archetypal ethos of C.G. Jung made Campbell a prime candidate for Graham’s deeply-digging, Nietzschean/ecstatic archaic/abstract movement vocabulary. The choreographer and the professor spoke the same kinaesthetic language, Erdman remembered. There were many late nights when “Martha would call Joe on the phone” with some arcane question about her mythographic pieces in progress – Night Journey and Errand into the Maze. Many of Campbell’s essays in this book were first published in Dance Observer… show more.

I selected this book because it finally offered me some answers to questions I’d asked myself all my life: Why am I so driven to dance? Why does dancing make me feel so euphoric? McNeill found himself asking this last question when forced to go through endless military close-order drill (a sort of dance!) as a young draftee. Whence these surprisingly positive effects of “keeping together in time”? Over the course of his later life as a historian, he tracked down a fascinating array of anecdotal and cognitive answers.  The relation of this phenomenon to unique details of how the human brain is put together was then further addressed by Oliver Sacks toward the end of his book Musicophilia, where I first learned of McNeill.