Mitali Bose Perkins was born in Kolkata (Calcutta), India. Her name means "friendly" in Bangla, and she had to try and live up to it because the Bose family moved so often--they lived in India, Ghana, Cameroon, London, New York City, and Mexico City before settling in the San Francisco Bay Area when she was in middle school.
Mitali studied political science at Stanford University and public policy at U.C. Berkeley, surviving academia thanks to a steady diet of kids' books from public libraries and bookstores, and went on to teach middle school, high school, and college students. She lived in India, Bangladesh, Thailand, and California with her husband and twin sons before the Perkins family moved to Newton, Massachusetts, where they live now.
Mitali's books include Monsoon Summer (Random House), Rickshaw Girl, and the award-winning Bamboo People.