Monsoon Summer — Mitali Perkins

From the author of Rickshaw Girl and You Bring the Distant Near, a National Book Award Longlist title, comes a story about the magic of India's monsoon season -- “monsoon madness” -- and all the change it brings to a teenage girl and her family.
 
Jasmine “Jazz” Gardner heads off to India during the monsoon season. The family trip is her mother's doing: Mrs. Gardner wants to volunteer at the orphanage that cared for her when she was young. But going to India isn't Jazz's idea of a great summer vacation. She wants no part of her mother's do-gooder endeavors.
 
What's more, Jazz is heartsick. She's leaving the business she and her best friend, Steve Morales, started -- as well as Steve himself. Jazz is crazy in love with the guy.
 
Only when Jazz befriends Danita, a girl from the orphanage who cooks for her family and faces a tough dilemma, does Jazz begin to see how she can make a difference -- to her own family, to Danita, to the children at the orphanage, and even to Steve.
 
As India claims Jazz, the monsoon works its madness and magic.