Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I listened to Veera Hiranandani’s The Night Diary this week, and you really should just go out and buy this book. (The print copy or the audio, because the audio was lovely.) I am SO GLAD this was a Newbery Honor book, because I have never come across a middle grade book about Partition before–the Partition of India in 1947–and it was a heartbreakingly fascinating reading experience. Nisha’s diary of letters to her mother (who died in childbirth) is accessible and beautiful and poignant, and it adds a layer of Newbery diversity that I’ve never seen before. (I haven’t read all of them yet, it’s true–but I have read an awful lot.) Why don’t we know more about this piece of history? I recognize that our country wasn’t particularly involved, but this is part of the history of OUR WORLD.

Of course, that’s exactly why historical fiction matters so much–it brings the history of our world alive for those of us who weren’t alive to see it. Nisha’s family’s part of India becomes another country in August of 1947, and as Hindus, they are suddenly on the wrong side of the India-Pakistan border. Their journey to the new India–and to safety–is seen through the eyes of a girl old enough to know that what’s happening around her makes no sense and young enough not to understand why it’s happening anyway. This is an important book–a book with a message that matters as much today as it would have back then–and simultaneously a good book, a book that draws you in and whose characters tug at your heart. Read it–give it to your children–talk about it to your friends.

I’m in the middle of doing just that.