Human and civil rights attorney Shelley Anand joins the children's literary world with Laxmi's Mooch, a funny, body-positive book about loving all of you.
Four-year-old Indian American Laxmi has tiny hairs above her lip: a "mooch," or mustache in Hindi. Laxmi isn't initially aware of her mooch. But when playing farm animals with her friends, they suggest that she be a cat instead of a chicken because she has "little hairs on [her] lip, like cat whiskers." Laxmi, mortified, suddenly notices that she has hair all over her body: on her arms, legs, knuckles and "even in the space between my eyebrows!" Devastated by her newly revealed hairiness, she complains to her mother.. Mummy reminds Laxmi that she, too, has a mustache and that they "come from a long line of women with moochay." Mummy's pep talk works, and the next day Laxmi returns to school proudly flaunting her mooch. Soon enough, all the other kids want a mooch, too.
Anand fills Laxmi's Mooch with encouraging and affirming words. Illustrator Nabi H. Ali (All the Way to the Top) perfectly matches and reflects Anand's text with his vibrant digital illustrations. Ali's art both spans double-page spreads, depicting details of Laxmi's busy school and comfortable Indian American home, and pulls in close to show emotion through knitted brows, red cheeks or tear-filled eyes. Readers invited to watch Laxmi grow may also gain some confidence to celebrate their own bodies no matter what they look like--or where their hair may grow. --Natasha Harris, freelance reviewer