After Laxmi's friend Zoe points out the hairs on her lip, Laxmi is very self-conscious until her East Indian parents help her to accept and celebrate her appearance. - (Baker & Taylor)

A joyful, body-positive picture book about a young Indian American girl's journey to accept her body hair and celebrate her heritage after being teased about her mustache.

Laxmi never paid much attention to the tiny hairs above her lip. But one day while playing farm animals at recess, her friends point out that her whiskers would make her the perfect cat. She starts to notice body hair all over--on her arms, legs, and even between her eyebrows.

With her parents' help, Laxmi learns that hair isn't just for heads, but that it grows everywhere, regardless of gender. Featuring affirming text by Shelly Anand and exuberant, endearing illustrations by Nabi H. Ali, Laxmi's Mooch is a celebration of our bodies and our body hair, in whichever way they grow. - (Penguin Putnam)

A debut picture book author, Shelly Anand is a human and civil rights attorney in Atlanta fighting for immigrants and low income workers from marginalized communities. She received her BA from Wellesley College and her JD from the University of North Carolina School of Law at Chapel Hill. She lives with her husband and two small children.

Nabi H. Ali is a Tamil American illustrator who enjoys creating diverse works that showcase an array of cultures and people. He illustrates digitally, but he also has a secret love of inks, color pencil, and acrylic paints. His hobbies include drawing (of course), doll collecting, reading, learning about South Asian mythology and folklore, and researching history. - (Penguin Putnam)

Booklist Reviews

*Starred Review* Laxmi, an Indian American girl, kicks off this story of affirmation by introducing herself—"Hi!"—along with her mooch, the faint hair above her lip, which she invites readers to take a closer look at. Laxmi discovered her mooch at recess, when a blonde girl playfully suggested that Laxmi should be a cat because of her whiskers. This made her deeply self-conscious, noticing little hairs all over her body, and Ali captures the anxiety through the girl's expressive eyes and posture as she hides her mooch, while a crowd of imagined word bubbles of people whispering "meow" presses in around her. Back home—where both the text and art color scenes with Indian culture—she shares her distress, but her mom and dad, both rocking mooches, assure her that she descends from a long, proud line of women with moochay. "Everyone has a mooch, really." Next recess, Laxmi spots the faint hairs coloring her blonde friend's upper lip—to her delight. When another boy asks about his mooch, the girls can't find a hint of mustache, so he lines up, along with every other moochless child, to have Laxmi draw one on his face. Anand's story is simple and purposeful, but it's a much-needed purpose, sweetly delivering a message of body positivity around a common insecurity that is rarely addressed. Preschool-Grade 1. Copyright 2021 Booklist Reviews.

Kirkus Reviews

Laxmi, an Indian American elementary school student, has a mooch. A mooch, Laxmi explains, is a sprinkling of hairs on her upper lip; it's also the Hindi word for mustache. Laxmi is unaware of her mooch until her friends Zoe and Noah point it out during recess. At first, Laxmi is mortified—especially when she realizes she doesn't have fine, dark hairs just on her top lip but all over her whole body. At the end of the day, she runs home to her parents, who react to her distress with humor and compassion. Mummy explains that Laxmi comes from generations of women with mooches. When Laxmi complains about the hair between her eyebrows, her parents compare her to feminist icon Frida Kahlo. Laxmi is still upset, but that night she dreams of tigers, and, appropriately, in the morning she has a whole new attitude—about herself and about her hair. Debut author Anand skillfully balances humor with sincerity, crafting a narrator who is both vulnerable and powerful, while Ali contributes sunny-humored illustrations that place the appealingly chubby, brown-skinned girl at the center of a diverse classroom headed by a hijabi teacher. Laxmi's journey is both accessible and authentic, and it is a true pleasure to watch her not only embrace her own body, but also teach her classmates how to embrace theirs as well. A picture glossary of the Hindi vocabulary used appears on the endpapers. (This book was reviewed digitally with 8.5-by-22-inch spreads viewed at 22.5% of actual size.) Fabulous, funny body positivity. (Picture book. 3-8) Copyright Kirkus 2021 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly Reviews

Laxmi, a softly round Indian American girl with golden brown skin and two black braids, narrates this body hair–normalizing tale. When Laxmi's friends Zoe and Noah—a lanky blond and a plump yarmulke-wearing child—point out the "little hairs on your lip" during a game of animal make-believe, Laxmi hurries to the mirror. Suddenly self-conscious of her mooch—mustache in Hindi—Laxmi hides her upper lip, worries that kids are mocking her, and notices "hair all over my body": arms, eyebrows, knuckles, and legs. Arriving home, she's distraught—but her parents soon dispel her concerns with humor and heart. Debut author Anand's dialogue feels both genuine and gentle, incorporating Hindi with ease ("Nahi! You know, we come from a long line of women with moochay"). Warm, expressive digital illustrations by Ali (All the Way to the Top), meanwhile, feature a hijabi teacher and classmates with varying skin tones and hair textures. A joyfully affirmative picture book with a winning first-person point of view. Endpapers feature a Hindi-English picture glossary. Ages 4–8. Author's agent: Saba Sulaiman, Talcott Notch Literary. Illustrator's agent: James Burns, the Bright Agency. (Mar.)

School Library Journal Reviews

Gr 1–3—Laxmi is a South Asian girl, sporting dark hair, tan skin, and tiny dark hairs above her upper lip. Her mooch, or mustache, becomes the topic of conversation one day at school, causing Laxmi to become extremely self-conscious about all of her body hair. At home, Laxmi asks her parents about her mooch; they, in return, quell Laxmi's insecurities by comparing her to other beautiful people and creatures who have hair elsewhere than their heads. The next day, Laxmi proudly displays her mooch, inviting her classmates to celebrate their own—real or not—along with her. Beautifully illustrated using a wide array of colors, Laxmi's world is filled with people of many skin shades, body types, and cultural backgrounds. The images pair delightfully with the text, propelling the story forward and connecting readers to Laxmi and her life. Additionally, Laxmi invites readers into her story at the beginning and the end, breaking the fourth wall and making children feel seen in a safe, friendly way. Mid-length text makes this story well suited to kids, whether as a read aloud or an independent read. Hindi words blend seamlessly into the dialogue, requiring no translation; however, these words also appear on the endpapers with accompanying visuals to reiterate this potentially new vocabulary. VERDICT Readers of all ages will appreciate the message of self-love presented within Laxmi's story, which takes on body positivity for a relatively young audience in an uplifting way.—Mary Lanni, formerly at Denver P.L.