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A young boy’s desperate search for his family.



Nominations and Awards:
Quill & Quire named it one of the Top Five Books for Young People in 2011
Included in the Ontario Library Association’s Best Bets List for 2012
Nominated for Children’s Book of The Year Award 2012 by the Canadian Library Association.
Nominated for the Ontario Library Association Red Maple Fiction Award 2013
Nominated for Manitoba Young Readers' Choice Award for 2013 (MYRCA)
Nominated for the Saskatchewan Young Readers’ Choice Award 2013 (SYRCA)

“Melding the fantastically factual with fiction, Narsimhan sheds light on a relatively unknown part of Mumbai life while simultaneously creating a compelling quest that reads like a classic folk tale. Forgive the groan-inducing wordplay, but a novel this original is one in six million.”
Starred Review ― Quill & Quire


The dabbawallas of Mumbai deliver box lunches — called tiffins — to whitecollar workers all over the vast city. They are legendary for their near-perfect service: for every six million lunches sent, only one will fail to reach its intended destination. The Tiffin is about that one time in millions when a box goes astray, changing lives forever.

When a note placed in a tiffin is lost, a newborn — Kunal — is separated from his mother. Twelve years later, Kunal lives as a virtual slave under the thumb of his foster father, Seth. With danger and oppression making it impossible to stay where he is, Kunal asks his friend Vinayak, an aging dabbawalla, to help him find his birth mother. Vinayak introduces Kunal to the tiffin carriers, and a plan is hatched. Along the way, Kunal learns what it means to be part of a family.

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