Bollywood takes over in this “effervescent” ( Booklist ) and magical middle grade novel about an Indian American girl whose world turns upside down when she involuntarily starts bursting into glamorous song-and-dance routines during everyday life. You know how in Bollywood when people are in love, they sing and dance from the mountaintops? Eleven-year-old Sonali wonders if they do the same when they’re breaking up. The truth is, Sonali’s parents don’t get along, and it looks like they might be separating. Sonali’s little brother, Ronak, is not taking the news well, constantly crying. Sonali would never do that. It’s embarrassing to let out so many feelings, to show the world how not okay you are. But then something strange happens, something magical, maybe. When Sonali gets upset during a field trip, she can’t bury her feelings like usual—instead, she suddenly bursts into a Bollywood song-and-dance routine about why she’s upset! The next morning, much to her dismay, Sonali’s reality has shifted. Things seem brighter, almost too bright. Her parents have had Bollywood makeovers. Her friends are also breaking out into song and dance. And somehow, everyone is acting as if this is totally normal. Sonali knows something has gone wrong, and she suspects it has something to do with her own mismanaged emotions. Can she figure it out before it’s too late? "A love letter to Bollywood that offers heartfelt encouragement to the lonely." -- Kirkus Reviews "Effervescent." -- Booklist "Hilarious and harrowing." -- Shelf Awareness Born and raised in the Midwest, Supriya Kelkar learned Hindi as a child by watching three Hindi movies a week. She is a screenwriter who has worked on the writing teams for several Hindi films and one Hollywood feature. Supriya’s books include Ahimsa , The Many Colors of Harpreet Singh , American as Paneer Pie , and That Thing about Bollywood , among others. Visit her online at SupriyaKelkar.com. Chapter 1 CHAPTER 1 You know how in Bollywood movies, people sing and dance on mountaintops when they’re in love? I wonder if they do the same when they’re splitting up. I walked my dinner plate to the kitchen sink, searching for the answer as I thought about all the Hindi movies I’d seen. The rules of classic Bollywood, from way back in the ’80s and ’90s, were pretty easy to remember: everything was loud, exaggerated, and colorful. I scrubbed the miniscule remnants of green-bean shaak and daal bhaat off my stainless-steel plate. As the specks of spices, lentils, and rice slipped down the drain, I made a mental list of what you do when you’re feeling a certain way in an old Hindi movie: When you’re happy, you sing, sometimes from a mountaintop. When you’re sad, you sing. When you’re really into what you’re wearing, you sing. Seriously. There are songs about scarves, bindis, bangles, anklets… any accessory will do. I’ll bet one day there will be a song about thermal underwear. When you’re mad, nope, you don’t sing. But you can do an angry instrumental dance or scream while shaking in rage, and the soundtrack behind you will be full of dishoom dishoom as you beat up the bad guys and save the day. And when you’re jealous, you can sing or take part in a bonus dance-off. Basically, anytime you are feeling something, you show it. So, I guess, yeah, you would sing in a Bollywood movie when you were breaking up. I dried my hands and walked past the window with the swaying jacaranda trees in our backyard. I glanced at the white house behind ours with the clay tile roof crawling with purple bougainvillea vines, my friend Zara’s house, and I headed into our family room. My grandparents’ four pictures hung on the light-gray wall there with dried sandalwood garlands around them, symbolizing that they had passed away. Across from the pictures, Mom and my little brother, Ronak, were already snuggled under a blanket on our long gray sofa. “What are we watching tonight, Sonali ben?” Ronak asked, adding on the respectful Gujarati word for “big sister.” “Something funny,” I replied, accidentally bumping into the stack of dusty books about the history of Hindi films on the end table. I straightened them out and opened the wooden armoire in the corner, which was covered in family pictures of us whale watching and at Sequoia National Park. I was extra careful not to knock over the new framed photo of my aunt Avni Foi, grinning with her fiancé, Baljeet Uncle, at their engagement party. The armoire was stuffed to the max with old VHS tapes from when my grandfather owned Indian Video, a little store in Artesia that used to rent Hindi movie videotapes to people, before switching to DVDs. When Dada passed away last summer, he left all the store’s retired videotapes to me, because he knew how much I used to love watching them with him when I was little. Luckily, Dada had passed his old VHS player down to me too, or I’d have no way to watch the tapes at home. And now every Sunday, my famil