For his debut middle-grade novel, actor Maulik Pancholy, of 30 Rock and Phineas and Ferb fame, took liberally from his own experiences growing up Indian American, gay, and nerdy in the Midwest. But if readers come away surprised by the underlying senses of hope and optimism, given what we have come to expect from stories of such kids in such environments, that’s because Pancholy wanted it that way. In writing The Best At It (Balzer + Bray, Oct. 8), he channeled what he terms “truthful possibility.” Just because something is unexpected, or even unlikely, doesn’t mean that it can’t happen.

Eighth grader Rahul is luckier than most. He has loving and understanding parents, a playful and supportive grandfather, and a best friend with endless reserves of strength and loyalty. But for Rahul, it’s not enough. Looking around his small-town Indiana school, he sees plenty of examples of the types of boy he’d like to be; they just don’t look like him.

To grow up in the United States is to grow up with a very specific understanding of beauty, of manhood, of what it means to be American. The heartthrobs on television, the action heroes in films, and the models in magazines are all overwhelmingly white and muscular. For people who are different in any way, the understanding is that they don’t quite belong.

“When you’re young,” Pancholy says, “you don’t even realize what’s happening. You don’t understand that you’re being sent silent messages that you and your story don’t matter or don’t exist, that if you’re going to move through the world you’re going to need to be something like the characters you see in books or television or film.”

For young people, fitting in is so often what matters most. So kids look at the world they know and must decide between two choices: accepting an unwanted place outside the norm or trying to mold themselves to better fit in. For Rahul, that means steering clear of mathletics and trying out for the football team even though he can solve complex equations in minutes and has never so much as touched a football. But the effects run deeper, leaving him so confused that he finds it hard to even understand his own feelings. In a particularly poignant and heart-wrenching moment, Rahul admits to his friend that he isn’t sure what it is that draws his eyes again and again to Justin, a white, athletic boy in their class; does he want to be Justin, or does he want to be with Justin?

“When I was a kid and we traveled to India for the first time,” Pancholy says, “I remember turning on the television and seeing people who looked like me. There was this sense of belonging and validation that came with that. I think it’s something about being human,” he reflects, “this need that we have to know that we belong.”

When literature and film take representation seriously, kids don’t need to fly halfway around the world to see themselves reflected in human terms. And real progress is being made. Pancholy, who served on President Barack Obama’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, notes that “things have gotten so much better in television and film and books, in particular for young people. But I still feel like there’s a long way to go.”

That’s especially true in the current political climate. “We’re hearing these ideas that brown people are terrorists or that immigrants should go back where they came from,” Pancholy says. “I think we’re at a precarious moment historically. But,” he adds, “I’m kind of excited that this book is coming out now, when it can have a real impact, when it can serve as a conversation starter. Rahul’s parents are immigrants, and we see that it’s an imperfect world, but we also see a large number of friends corralling behind them. People don’t always react in the best ways, and I wanted to be honest about that, but I also wanted to show something positive, to show how it could be.”

James Feder is a New York–born, Scottish-educated writer based in Tel Aviv. The Best At It received a starred review in the July 1, 2019, issue.