Uma Krishnaswami (Children's Literature)
Jasmine "Jazz" Gardner travels to her mother's native India on a philanthropic quest that is emphatically not her idea, and leaves behind her childhood friend-turned-love interest Steve. With his "Hope you guys survive the visit" ringing in her ears, the journey is not off to an auspicious start. Once in India, however, Jazz is drawn despite herself into many circles--the orphanage where her mother was cared for as an infant, the ritzy school she initially enrolls in, and the world of Danita, the girl who is assigned to be the family's domestic help. This is an unusual perspective on an Indian setting for more than one reason. First of all, Jazz is part Indian, part American, and even her Indian-born mother has few tangible memories of the country, having left it when she was four. As a result, the India we see is not familiar to these characters, as it would be to the families of returning immigrants. Instead it is quite exotic. In addition, it is colored by layers of emotion related to that long-ago adoption. The adoption theme, even one generation removed from the protagonist, might well resonate with the American families who adopt from overseas. Jazz's voice is sassy and likeable. Mature at times for her age, with business-savvy to boot, she leads the reader through cluttered city streets and the cloistered setting of the orphanage, to a final resolution afforded by her own generous gesture. The orphanage, located outside the city of Pune in the western state of Maharashtra, feels generically Indian rather than reflecting the specific geography and linguistic mix of that region. Monsoon Summer is one of a growing number of books for young readers about American families with links to the Indian subcontinent. With it, Perkins (The Sunita Experiment) contributes to changing the paradigm of cultural contact from collision to fusion. 2004, Delacorte, $15.95. Ages 12 up.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2004 (Vol. 72, No. 14))
With an athletic build, Jasmine "Jazz" Gardner barely resembles her petite, delicate Indian mother. She can understand why her best friend and partner of the Biz, which sells photo postcards with Berkeley, California, backgrounds to nostalgic hippies, probably has no interest in her as a girlfriend. Now she's spending the summer with her family in Pune, India, while her mother sets up a women's clinic at the orphanage from which she was adopted. After being robbed by a homeless woman working for the Biz, Jazz hesitates to get involved in charitable acts like her mother. Is it Monsoon Madness-magical rains that cause people to behave in peculiar ways-that drives Jazz to help an orphan girl who dreams of starting her own business rather than accept a marriage proposal by a man more than twice her age, confess her love to Steve, and accept her body as beautiful? Although the author's altruistic messages are heavy-handed, she enlightens readers not familiar with the richness of Indian culture. In Bollywood fashion, she turns turmoil into happy endings. 2004, Delacorte, 272p, $15.95. Category: Fiction. Ages 12 to 15. © 2004 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Claire Rosser (Kliatt Review, July 2004 (Vol. 38, No. 4))
Jasmine (aka Jazz) lives in Berkeley, California, and she and her best friend Steve have a little business they run after school, weekends, and in the summer--a business that is highly successful. Jazz is in love with Steve, but feels awkward about letting him know how she feels, afraid it would ruin their friendship and partnership. Jazz's mother has a plan for the family to travel together to the orphanage in India where she was once abandoned as a baby and spend the summer helping the nuns who once had helped her so much. Most of the story takes place in India, as each member of the family discovers new interests and changes in profound ways. Jazz has always seen herself as gawky, not very attractive (she is large and strong and her mother is incredibly lovely and petite). She knows she is reliable and has a good business sense, but has never thought she had the kind heart and loving ways of her mother. The summer in India changes all those conceptions. The Indian teenagers think she is beautiful and exotic; she learns to dance traditional dances and starts to feel more graceful and confident. She makes friends with an orphan named Danita who is about her own age and learns that Danita is expected to accept an arranged marriage soon and leave the orphanage. Jazz is horrified that Danita is willing to even consider this fate, and she encourages Danita to start her own business to gain some independence. Jazz's own experience is invaluable to Danita, and by the end of the summer Jazz is seeing new ways she can help Danita achieve independence. Throughout is Jazz's correspondence with Steve who is back in California, but many of the letters she writes she is unable to send, afraid of revealing her true feelings towards him. How their romance develops even over such a long distance is a major aspect of the story, and an appealing one for YA readers. But the strength of the novel is the detailed life in India in Pune during the months the family is there. The author is Bengali herself and she and her husband journeyed to Pune, "where God blessed us with the gift of our twin sons." Category: Hardcover Fiction. KLIATT Codes: JS--Recommended for junior and senior high school students. 2004, Random House, Delacorte, 257p., $15.95. Ages 12 to 18.

Catherine M. Andronik (Library Media Connection, January 2005)
India is not where Jazz planned on spending her summer. But charity-minded Mrs. Gardner wants to return to the orphanage from which she had been adopted years ago. In India, Jazz comes to appreciate the tall, big-boned, fair European genes she inherited from her father as attractive; she learns about caste and arranged marriages; and she begins to recognize, trust, develop, and share her own special business skills. Some of the secondary characters seem a bit flat. Nevertheless, middle school readers will enjoy the glimpse of a foreign culture through American eyes, with a hint of romance. Additional Selection. 2004, Delacorte Press (Random House), 231pp., $15.95 hc. Ages 11 to 16.

Hope Morrison (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, September 2004 (Vol. 58, No. 1))
Jasmine's mother Sarah was adopted from the Asha Bari orphanage in Pune, India, when she was four years old. Now involved in various Bay Area social-service agencies, Sarah has secured a grant to return to the orphanage and open a clinic for pregnant women, and she's bringing the family along for the summer. Fifteen-year-old Jasmine (known as Jazz) is reluctant to leave the business she and her friend Steve started the previous year--and even more reluctant to leave Steve, for whom she has been secretly pining for many months. Further, Jazz refuses to get involved in her mother's service projects and wants no part of Asha Bari despite her father and brother's willingness to contribute. Jazz is an overwhelmingly likable and understandable teen; the real treat here is that the reader realizes it long before she herself does, and it is wholly satisfying to watch her develop the awareness that she has a great deal to offer. The story provides an intriguing demonstration of the concept of getting through giving; despite her reluctance to get to know Danita, the young Indian girl who cooks for the family, Jazz finds a true friend and ally as a result of their developing friendship. The correspondence between Jazz and Steve over the summer months offers a romantically fulfilling element to the story as well as providing a narrative tool for recording how Jazz is responding to the experience of being in India for the first time. Offer this to fans of Brashares' Traveling Pants books (BCCB 12/01, 5/03) for a similarly enjoyable take on unexpected summer adventures. (Reviewed from galleys) Review Code: R -- Recommended. (c) Copyright 2004, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 2004, Knopf, 272p, $17.99 and $15.95. Grades 7-10.

Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, Spring 2005)
Half-white, half-Indian, Jazz sees herself (unfavorably) as "Amazon woman," the complete opposite of her petite, do-gooder mom, but on a trip to India, Jazz starts helping others, and her distorted self-image gets an overhaul. The funny and honest first-person narrative also treats readers to a satisfying (if predictable) romance when newly confident Jazz confesses her feelings to Steve, the unrequited love of her life. Category: Older Fiction. 2004, Delacorte, 261pp, $15.95, $17.99. Ages 12 to 14. Rating: 2: Superior, well above average.

Amber Coronado (The Lorgnette - Heart of Texas Reviews (Vol. 17, No. 4))
Jazz,” short for Jasmine, isn’t what she thinks is a typical 15-year-old. She is tall and sturdy and is half Indian, half white. With her best friend and the boy she is secretly in love with, Steve, she owns a tourist photo shop in Berkley, California. Jazz has just found out that she is to spend the summer with her family in Pune, India, because her mother wants to return to the orphanage she began her life in to set up a clinic. Without telling Steve of her feelings, she heads to India to begin what she believes will be a boring summer. What she experiences, however, is the discovery of the magic of the monsoon season as she befriends a 15-year-old orphan and discovers her own beauty and wit. Jazz is thoroughly enjoyable character who is funny and smart. Through her eyes readers vividly see the sights, smell the smells, and witness the hardships if the impoverished parts of India. The story is warm, romantic, and well written. Fiction, Highly Recommended. Grades 6-12. 2004, Delacorte, 257p., $15.95. Ages 11 to 18.