Veera Hiranandani

Shy twelve-year-old Nisha, forced to flee her home with her Hindu family during the 1947 partition of India, tries to find her voice and make sense of the world falling apart around her by writing to her deceased Muslim mother in the pages of her diary.

The Night Diary

Sociopolitical conflicts are complicated but when you try to see through the eyes and hearts of children who experience it, they're as simple as "Why is there fighting when we're all just humans?" Before their minds get corrupted, children treat people the same way regardless of their skin color, race, gender, religion.  

Dana Jean

Melissa Palmer

Book #58 Read in 2018
The Night Diary by Veera Hiranandani

This is a young adult historical fiction book that is set when India was being divided into two countries. Nisha chronicles how this is affecting her life in a diary, writing letters to her dead mother. It shows the physical and emotional strain these people went through at this time. The letter format makes it a quick read that can work for reluctant readers in both middle and high school. I borrowed this book from the public library.

Nadine 

Possibly one of the first books written about the Indian partition from a child's point of view. While the author doesn't shirk from the realities and violence it is not given prominence.
Sub-plots include cleft palette, dyslexia and selective mutism which I felt made the book a little overly burdened with "big themes" in such a slim book. All worthy subjects but a bit more historical background would have been better use of the word count.

Darshini ✨

Veera Hiranandani has done a remarkable job in telling a very genuine, moving, and powerful story about the journey of a family during the India-Pakistan partition in 1947. A must-read 💯

Samantha Seeman

This is a middle grade, own voice story about a young girl who grew up during a historical time that is rarely talked about in the US. Nisha tells her family’s struggle through letters to her dead mother. Nisha struggles with talking to others, so for her birthday, their cook Kazi gifts her a diary, and encourages her to write everything down. She records her family’s encounters with hatred, violence, and a move none of them wanted to make, all because of their religious following. Up to this point, India (ruled by the British) was tolerant of the three main religions that resided within it’s borders. Once the British relinquish rule of India, it decides to split itself, allowing the Muslims to reside in the new Pakistan, and the Hindus in what is left of India. Not only does the author tackle a rarely talked about part of history, but also a child’s internal struggle with herself and her words. This unique perspective on what was supposed to be viewed as a peaceful, and celebrated part of Indian history, packs quite the punch.

“Remembering the mistakes of the past will hopefully create a more enlightened, tolerant, and peaceful future. Accepting differences has always been a great challenge for humanity played out in thousands of ways. This was one way.” – Veera Hiranandani (Author’s Note, pg. 263-264)

Jeni Enjaian

I absolutely loved this book. 
The time period of partition has suffered for quite a while from a lack of artistic depiction. In the past year or two I have come across two beautiful yet quite different depictions, one is this book and the other is an episode from the next to most recent series of Doctor Who. 
Hiranandani crafted a beautiful coming of age novel for Nisha who chronicles this extremely difficult time period in her life in the form of a diary that she writes at night. She structures the diary as a series of letters to her mother who died 12 years earlier giving birth to Nisha and her twin brother. Hiranandani weaves together a complex narrative of a girl longing for her mother, searching for her identity in a time when a country encountered that own search with horrific outcomes. 

I highly recommend this book.

Megan Rose

** spoiler alert **
           This was a beautiful read. One of the things that stood out to me the most was how vividly the narrator Nisha describes the world around her. One of my favorite lines was, “The sun sank into the horizon and exploded in hot oranges and blues.” As I read that line, I could clearly imagine the sunset.

I also enjoyed reading from Nisha’s perspective. As a 12 year old, her perspective of the world maintains a level of innocence that differs from how an adult might view it.

The Night Diary

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