PVLF 2026

Interview with Uma Krishnaswami, Author of The Sunshine Project

Uma Krishnaswami discusses The Sunshine Project, exploring how Anil’s quiet courage, curiosity, and love for solar energy inspire young readers to become changemakers.
on Nov 04, 2025

Frontlist: What inspired you to explore themes of environmental awareness and social responsibility through Anil’s story in The Sunshine Project?

Uma: I never know what the themes of my books are until after I’ve written them.

The natural world and our responsibility toward it, and also toward people who live close to the land and understand its needs—these things are related in my mind, and they’re often somewhere in the background of my thinking. But I build my novels incrementally, one scene at a time, so I always try to keep my authorial intention out of the process. What I needed in the story was to bring Anil’s enthusiasm about solar energy to the forefront while still making him step outside his comfort zone.

I had set that pattern up for the first two books—Yasmin, a dedicated reader, has to take her nose out of her book and deal with real life. Reeni, a bird lover, has to learn to listen to her friends and consider their feelings. So here's Anil, who’s a quiet sort of kid and doesn’t really like being in the spotlight. I had to create conflict that would put him there. That’s really how I arrived at these themes, through a kind of deliberate indirection.

Frontlist: Anil faces a dilemma between progress and preservation. How did you approach portraying this complex balance for young readers in an accessible way?

Uma: Progress and preservation—that’s how we’ve always seen it, and that is the dilemma that Anil thinks he’s facing. But as the story goes on, the real question becomes one of perspective. Who decides what progress is? What is preservation, and who is in charge of it?

When you think about it in terms of agency and stewardship rather than progress versus preservation, the conversation changes. The beauty of writing a child character is that children don’t necessarily hold preconceived notions about such things. So, when Anil gets brave enough to start asking questions, he finds himself stepping outside that conventional framework. He becomes capable of listening to many different perspectives before landing on his position.

Frontlist: The idea of a child taking initiative and becoming a ‘Young Reporter’ is empowering. What message do you hope children take from Anil’s courage to ask difficult questions?

Uma: I should talk about Mrs. Rao, who sets these daunting assignments. Adults in children’s books can get in the way of the child characters, but they can also act as allies. I created Mrs. Rao as an ideal teacher — one who gives her students tough tasks and then lets them find their own ways to complete them. She’s flexible, but she also holds them to a standard.

Because of those conditions, trusting himself is the only way for Anil to find his footing and grow. I hope there’s something about that fictional depiction that rings true and feels universal. I hope that somewhere there’s a quiet, thoughtful child reading this book who glimpses Anil as if in a mirror, or maybe a bolder, opinionated child who sees him as if through a window.

Either way, I hope that children feel recognized in these books, and I hope they begin to trust their own instincts about fairness and injustice.

Frontlist: Your Book Uncle trilogy highlights the role of community, friendship, and mentorship in shaping young minds. How important are these elements in nurturing real-life changemakers among children?

Uma: I have no idea. I don’t even know if anyone has studied those specific correlations. What I know is the value of friendship in my own life. I also have vivid memories of mentors (mostly teachers as early as Grades 3 and 4, and then again in Grades 9 and 10) who encouraged me to find my voice in the only way I knew, which was by writing. And I know how complicated and multilayered relationships can be, even within loving families. These are the truths I try to bring to my fiction, and if they speak to child readers, then I’ve done my job.

Frontlist: You’ve written stories set both in India and beyond. How has your own journey—from India to British Columbia—influenced the way you write about childhood, belonging, and activism?

Uma: I once complained to a writer friend, Shauna Singh Baldwin, about not having a connection to a single place. I had such an itinerant childhood in India, with my father’s job taking us to a new city every few years, that when someone asks me where I’m from in India, I don’t really have an answer because I feel as if I’m from so many places. And then, of course, being an immigrant does that to you — takes the ground out from under your feet and makes you walk on new ground that you then have to learn to tread. So, at one point, I felt envious of people who have a more cohesive personal geography, if you will. Shauna told me nicely that I should quit feeling sorry for myself. She said being from many places gives you a way of looking at the world that is different from other people’s. That’s a gift for a writer, she said, so go use it. I’m probably paraphrasing, but that was the essence of it. It was good advice, and I’ve tried to follow it over the years.

What I’ve also learned along the way is to pay attention to place. I find a lot of my stories start with a place. Book Uncle and Me began in Chennai with a girl sitting on the pavement and reading a book. The Problem With Being Slightly Heroic began in Washington, D.C., at the Smithsonian Institution’s Enid Haupt Garden.

I stumbled into activism with Yasmin and her books. I think it had less to do with my own journey and a lot more to do with how I write fiction. Yasmin became an activist on behalf of Book Uncle, and that felt right to me, so I kept following that thread through the book. By the time I wrote Birds on the Brain, the children already had a sense of themselves as collectively able to solve at least one big problem, so pretty soon they felt capable of taking on another.

Frontlist: In The Sunshine Project, Anil learns that even small voices can spark big change. Why do you think it’s essential for children to see themselves as agents of change in their communities?

Uma: The reason this has become such a preoccupation with me is that children live in the same world as we do, and they are not blind to its problems nor to its urgent needs. It’s clear to me that democracy may be flawed, but it’s still better than the alternative, which is putting some authoritarian up on a pedestal and bowing to his whims—and yes, even in the 21st century, the tyrants are mostly “him.” So I might as well tell kids stories about making changes in communities, taking responsibility for their actions, speaking up, and caring about injustices they witness. Not because I want all of them to rush out and become climate activists, but because I want to say that adults don’t have all the answers, and tomorrow’s answers might well depend on young people asking the right questions today. You’ll have noticed that they’re not shy about that either—just look at the number of young people who have taken on leadership roles in climate action around the world.

There’s a related fictional device I’ve used as well: that of a single action leading to spiraling consequences. My picture books, Out of the Way! Out of the Way! and Look! Look! are both about this. Maybe that reflects what we see in the natural world—protect a forest, stop choking a river, and it begins to recover. I write for children, so that’s the hope I’m placing in their hands.

Frontlist: Your works consistently celebrate the joy of reading. What role do you believe books and stories play in inspiring social consciousness in children?

Uma: How many hours do you have? Look, let’s just take one form of book — the picture book — which is an iconic part of children’s literature. As an art form, it demands social connection. It calls for an adult and a child to sit close together, one able to read, the other on the brink of literacy, sharing the book as an object. Turning its pages, they create meaning together. I was on a panel about empathy and picture books at the NEEV Book Festival, and we all agreed that this is where it can begin. When you feel emotions in response to what you are reading (or seeing and hearing, in the case of a picture book), you’re developing the capacity to empathize with someone else.

I see reading skills and reading for pleasure as two separate things. You need one to get by in the world; the other opens up the universe.

Not that I’m sentimental about books only doing good in the world. We all know that stories and books can also be harnessed for propaganda and to turn people against one another. But stories can communicate what it means to be human. They can show us the choices that lie before us on this only planet we call home. That’s what I find myself trying to pass along.

Frontlist: The Book Uncle trilogy has touched so many young readers. What do you hope The Sunshine Project leaves them thinking or feeling as they turn the final page?

Uma: It makes me happy that these books have resonated and continue to resonate with young readers. It was because of young readers responding to Book Uncle and Me that I even thought of writing the trilogy. I recently met a young woman who brought her dog-eared copy of Book Uncle and Me to a signing and told me she’s now buying Birds on the Brain and The Sunshine Project for her 10-year-old niece.

I hope that new readers will feel that they are among friends as they read these books, and that readers who loved Book Uncle and Me will feel that I’ve continued to do justice to my little trio. In the end, I hope readers feel assured that their own voices matter, and maybe even feel encouraged to use those voices in a cause they care about.