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The Night Diary

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By Veera Hiranandani
Dial Books for Young Readers, 2018. Fiction

12-year-old Nisha isn't much of a talker - she doesn't like to talk to her father, her Dadi, or her schoolmates. The only place she likes to talk is in her diary, where she writes to her mother who died in childbirth and tells her all about her world. It is 1947 and Nisha's home country of India has suddenly been torn apart. Though Nisha and her twin brother Amil are half-Muslim and half-Hindu, their family is forced to leave their hometown of Mirpur Khas when it becomes part of a new country called Pakistan. Nisha and her family leave everything they know to embark on a dangerous journey seeking refuge in India.

This book is packed with a lot of depth and emotional weight that is lightened up by the strong voice of a 12-year-old narrator who is only trying to understand why people aren't as inherently good as she'd always assumed them to be. This work of historical fiction is impeccably researched and gives a voice to the 1947 Partition of India that many young readers probably don't know about, but it bears comparison to the many forced refugees looking for homes today. Hiranandani's writing is remarkably well-handled making for a richly affecting story that is both compelling and complicated.

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