Night Diary, The

Twelve-year-old Nisha is a half-Muslim, half-Hindu girl who lives during the 1947 partition of India. As tensions grow in the area now known as Pakistan, her father decides it is too dangerous to remain in their home and they undertake a dangerous journey to cross the border to the newly-defined India where they must start over again in a new city. Nisha records her feelings and the struggles, hardships, and violence she experiences on this life-changing journey in a series of diary entries written to her dead mother. This novel, for grades 5-8, is suitable for a small group novel study, classroom or school library, and a Social Studies unit on global history and identity.