Half-Muslim, half-Hindu twelve-year-old Nisha doesn't know where she belongs, or what her country is anymore. The divide has created much tension between Hindus and Muslims, and hundreds of thousands are killed crossing borders. It's 1947, and India, newly independent of British rule, has been separated into two countries: Pakistan and India. In the vein of Inside Out and Back Again and The War That Saved My Life comes a poignant, personal, and hopeful tale of India's partition, and of one girl's journey to find a new home in a divided country

Highly recommended.'A gripping, nuanced story of the human cost of conflict appropriate for both children and adults.' Nisha’s diary shows readers that people around the world have much more in common than they have different. It handles the subject appropriately for its intended audience. This may be the first time child readers learn about Indian independence, the establishment of Pakistan, and the violence that followed. Her brother and father, grandmother and cook develop and change as Nisha’s perceptions of them grow. Nisha is innocent, with a deep longing for her mother and anyone who will love her. Nisha’s voice is superb-her diary entries simple and short, yet powerful and moving. This Newbery Honor book brings to life the history and culture and confusion of its setting. Attempting to reach Jodhpur and her father’s brothers, they must cross a desert in an attempt to avoid the violence that has incomprehensibly broken out. Her mother was Muslim, but her father is Hindu, so the family must leave their home which is now Pakistan and belongs to the Muslims. When India receives independence from Britain, Nisha cannot understand why the country must be split in two.

Nisha loves to cook and is being taught how to grind spices and boil rice and dal by her family’s live-in cook, Kazi. She loves school, but Amil struggles with reading, much to her doctor-father’s displeasure. Her early entries detail her normal life: Nisha is shy and has problems talking, often going for many days without saying anything to anyone but her twin.

She decides to write in it every night, summarizing her day for her mother, who died when she and her twin brother Amil were born. For her twelfth birthday, Nisha receives a diary.

The night diary online book