Anita and Me is written by Meena Syal who first came to my attention in the hit comedy Goodness Grascious Me which starred four Asian comicsin a series of sketches.

This book tells the story of little Meena growing up in the West Midlands and having to deal with the conflicts of a western upbringing within a Punjabi family structure, when she falls in with the local girl gang headed by Anita Rutter then matters start to escalate within the family and more conflicts surface especially when her Gran arrives to stay with the family.

This is a truly delightful book to read, it is very funny and also rather touching, Syal captures the innocent uncomplicated outlook on life of a nine year old child who has a yearning to fit in and not appear different, however being te only Punjabi family in the village this is a far from easy thing to do.

I found this book to be very appealing and well writen and I found it rather hard to put down, some of the scenes with the family are quite hilarious and it is clever how the innocence of youth is used to tell the story in a reflective manner.