In Misfit Madhu, Anand has narrated the tale of a grade 7 student, Madhu, who has a penchant for coding. She develops an app that helps school students swap their belongings. The story goes on to talk about the mini adventures of Madhu in the ensuing months. In narrating this tale, the storyline covers many dimensions of the psychosocial world of contemporary pre-teens.
Madhu and her classmates present a heterogeneous mix that is the hallmark of all middle school classrooms, where varied interests and habits make each student unique. What makes one who one is, and how does one find it? This is also the point of convergence for much of what is covered in the book. Madhu and her friends are at the cusp of embarking on a journey that would help them consolidate the various dimensions of their identities. From discovering their interests, to labelling and naming each other on the basis of their physical features or personalities, pre-teens in this book are on a constant endeavour to make sense of the world around them and finding their unique space in it.