She recklessly decides to ride a friend’s horse but falls and breaks her leg. Meena overhears Anita describing how she and Sam took part in a racist attack on an Indian man. Meena learns more about Indian culture from her grandmother and becomes proud of her heritage. Meena’s grandmother, Nanima, arrives from India to help the family. Meena’s mother struggles to cope after giving birth to Meena’s baby brother. At the local fete, a boy called Sam Lowbridge, who is usually kind to Meena, angrily criticises the project and yells racist insults. In the village, locals are angry about a planned motorway that will destroy parts of Tollington. Anita encourages Meena to do things she isn’t supposed to do, like steal a charity collection tin. Meena becomes friends with an older girl called Anita, whom Meena’s parents disapprove of. Meena’s parents struggle to deal with her bad behaviour, for example, when she steals sweets from a shop and lies about it. Meena and her parents are the only Indian family in Tollington, a village in the West Midlands. I found this book so funny and relatable, it really made me think of my own childhood. The place in which I belonged was wherever I stood." "I now knew I was not a bad girl, a mixed-up girl, a girl with no name or no place. She also learns to recognise Anita's friendship as unhealthy and As Meena grows up she learns toĮmbrace her Punjabi heritage and her confidence blooms. Friendship and identity are central to Anita and Me. Which means the author has based it on her own life experiences, but she's alsoĪdded some fictional elements. Maternal, and observant, but also fun, she has a strong sense of her own Nanima is Meena's grandmother from India. She looks up to Anita at first but as time goes on she sees her racistĪttitudes and the truth of her troubled life.Īnita is confident and bold, but she can also be mean and hurtful and she likes to be in control. Meena is intelligent, adventurous and a little rebellious. Relationship and they fall out when Anita is involved in a racist attack. but the cracks are growing in Meena and Anita's Her grandmother, Meena begins to value her own heritage more.
Meena looks up toĪnita, but Anita can be manipulative and controlling and she encourages Meena to behave badly- trespassing and stealing.Īfter Meena's baby brother is born, her Grandma, Nanima, comes from India to help the family. When Meena makes friends with Anita, who is a few years older than her, life becomes a lot more eventful. Herself torn between two different cultures. The book is set in a small fictional village, where Meena is part of the only Punjabi family. "I had seen how in an instant, those you called friends could suddenly become tormentors." This is a quote from Anita and Meīy Meera Syal, a book that tells the story of a young British Punjabi girl growing up in the Midlands during the 1970s.
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