“It’s okay to feel all your feelings about who you are!” — An interview with Veera Hiranandani, author of Many Things at Once

Please tell us about MANY THINGS AT ONCE.

MANY THINGS AT ONCE is probably my most autobiographical book yet. It depicts a young girl very similar to me with a father originally from India who is Hindu and a Jewish mother born in the US. She’s thinking about her complex family history and what that means to her identity as a biracial girl from an interfaith family as she puts a photo album together with her parents. Nadia Alam, the book’s amazing illustrator, created the photo album concept for the story. 

In the book, the girl’s parents tell her about what her grandparents went through and her parents’ story as well. The girl is very proud of her background and the richness it has, but admits that sometimes she feels different from those around her or not enough of one thing or the other. This can sometimes feel lonely or confusing and she wonders if that’s okay. Her parents tell her that it is okay to feel many things at once. The story expresses similar feelings I had growing up.

How did you come to write this book?

There are a lot of people who navigate multiple identities and it can be a complex journey. I wanted to create a space for my readers to feel “many things at once” about who they are. I grew up with very few examples of this experience, both in my real life and in stories. Now there are many more stories which celebrate multicultural backgrounds, though unfortunately in our current political landscape there are an increasing amount of people trying to remove or erase this progress with the increase in book banning. But it won’t stop me from creating stories inspired by my own identity and experiences. I really have no choice. It’s simply who I am. I also didn’t see many books for the youngest readers that addressed the range of feelings one can have about navigating multiple identities. This theme can go beyond racial or religious identity. Sometimes when we know we’re supposed to feel happy or proud, we might feel other things too. There’s a lot of complexity in everyone’s story.

Writing a book based on history — especially personal history — can be a creative challenge. What were some limitations you experienced? What was liberating?

It was difficult to include such huge topics like the Partition or pogroms that happened in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust in a picture book for kids and also have it be appropriate and relevant, so I tried to use simple, broad strokes with enough specificity and knowledge of my family history to make it feel personal and authentic. I find it’s easier with picture books to write a lot longer at first and edit it down to the most useful parts. I found writing the entire book liberating in the sense that I felt like I accomplished what I set out to do! I also hope it can provide a comforting and perhaps a liberating space for my readers.

Your books, both picture book and middle grade, often touch on family, place, belonging, and home. How is writing about these subjects different when writing for different age groups? Is there anything that is the same?

I’m used to writing about these themes for older readers, so in a picture book, the tricky part is simplifying the language or the concepts, but not the meaning. You still want to reach the depth that the story needs, but in a way a 5 or 6 year old rather than a 12 year old can understand. Part of that in a picture book comes down to the art and how the illustrator is complimenting, clarifying, or extending the text. The larger process is the same as far as looking towards the details of my own life and seeing what connections I can make out of that. I always start in that place. Sometimes that translates into a very direct connection, and sometimes it starts there and morphs into something only loosely tied to the original piece of inspiration.

What do you hope young readers take from MANY THINGS AT ONCE?

I hope they can connect to the story on different levels, whether they have a similar background or just understand the larger message—that identity is complex and it’s okay to feel all your feelings about who you are! 

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July is my yearly blogging sabbatical. I’ll see you all again come August. For now, I’ll leave you with a little teaser about a project I’m cooking up with fellow middle-grade verse novelist, Chris Baron: The Wild(fire) About Books Club coming for the 2025-2026 school year. Stay tuned!