Satyal, Rakesh.  Blue Boy.  2009. 276 p. Kensington, $15.00 (978-0-7582-3136-9). Gr. 9-12.

In this coming-of-age and coming out story, Kiran Sharma is a 12-year-old Indian-American kid who likes to play with his mother’s makeup, attend ballet classes, and play with dolls.  Awkward and beginning to sense his orientation, he feels like an outcast with his parents and their all-Indian world, and also with his classmates at the almost all-white Martin Van Buren Elementary School he attends.  When the annual talent show at the school is announced, Kiran decides to create and perform a ballet based on the blue-skinned Hindu deity, Krishnaji, in the hope to impress his parents and schoolmates.  As he prepares his costume, practices playing the flute like Krishnaji, and creates dance moves with a Whitney Houston song as background music, Kiran comes to believe that the reason he has trouble fitting in with his family and peers is because he  really is different—that he is the reincarnation of Krishnaji.  As his skin literally turns a bluish tint, Kiran’s illusions grow until the climatic talent show and his realization that it is not necessary for everyone to be the same and that a person’s peculiarities are unique treasures.  Funny and tragic, Kiran is a character hard to forget.  –Victor Schill