Book Review: The Night Diary By Veera Hiranandani

 

Have you read The Diary of Anne Frank? Did you like it? If you did then I would recommend you to read The Night Diary by Veera Hirandani. An young Adult historical fiction which has won Newbery Honor in 2019.

Some of my favorite lines from the book:

👉“Everyone knows who is Muslim, Hindu, or Sikh by the clothes they wear or the names they have. But we all have lived together in this town for so long, I just never thought much about people’s religions before.”

👉The British people are going to free India  but there is a talk of India being separated into two countries where Muslim have to go one place and the Hindus  the Sikh and everybody else have to go to another place. I told him that sounded insane why would India suddenly become 2 countries?

👉You don’t underdstand .You could be killed ! you cant change people’s mind s now.Its the only way to protect yourself. When we leave for the New India,things will be better. I hope"

👉Pakistan is for Muslims and everybody else will go to India, which isnt here anymore.  I wonder if any Hindus were staying  anyways. Papa says its not safe and the fighting will probably get worse. Papa says it was a group decision between Lord Mountbatten for thebritish , Jinaah for Muslims and Nehru for everyone else,They all agreed to the partition. 

Nisha , who is  twelve years old  writes a  diary dedicated to her mom, who died while giving birth . Nisha’s father is a doctor and works for a hospital in Mirkhaspur. Nisha lives with her grandmother, Kazi the cook, her brother Amil  and father.

Though Nisha was  Hindu but Nisha’s mom was muslim.  This novel has been written as documents/ recordinsgs. It recounts  India’s independence and the horror of Partition through Nisha’s  recordings.

At times this book  just gave me shiver on how much people had to struggle to be in the country they want to live.

As per Nehru, Jinnah and MountBatten, Muslims must move to Pakistan, while Hindu  Sikh Christian, Jain, Parsis should move to New India. 14 million people crossed the border  and atlest 1 million died.  Partition was one of the largest Mass movement in the history. The book is loosely based fiction..so when you read remember  there are things which are true and happened  to the author's father''s side.. The locality she lived everyone stayed united until the killing started.  It was beautifully expressed how Muslim and Hindu friends saved each other life in the misdt of all the chaos, staying together.

On 15 Aug 1947, Nisha and her family had to leave  Mirpur Khas which became part of Pakistan… Millions of people started walking  leaving everything behind, to enter New India as refugee without food and water .

From a child's point of view reading about  the partition, you can feel the innocence in every question Nisha ask to her mom in the diary. 

Highly recommended for Young adults and also Adults.

Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson

In the time when the entire world is fighting for the Covid19, the book  Fever 1793 which is a historical fiction shows the horror of such disaster. Though in this book it’s a state disaster  the question that rise is would you only help your family in such disaster or would you  help the nation and not be selfish ( though we all have seen how celebrity with covid kept on partying without informing the authority  a perfect example of selfishness. .

Corona virus or Yellow fever which is in this book actually showed the world how we are as human beings, how we react when there is a catastrophe,and  the horror of human suffering.

Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse  Anderson is a young adult historical fiction, but the incident actually took place in Philadelphia in 1793 when thousands and thousands of people died in yellow fever.The book points out  how the society fear outsider ( blaming  refugee for bringing the yellow fever in) isn’t it relatable?. No one was allowed to cross different cities with fever. They were left to die anywhere as everyone was scared of the disease getting spread.

Story 

The story is of Matilda a 14 year old from Philadelphia whose family suffered yellow fever. The struggle the pain she went through (especially in the time when the world had no technology, no knowledge about disease and also no doctors.) looking for her mother, who suffered yellow fever.

It was the time when people didn’t know how the disease is spread. They just knew if you had the disease you  would suffer and die.

No body understood that it was through mosquito that the fever was spreading like wild fire. Out 40000 people 4000 people died in immense pain and suffering.

When the winter sets in the  infection rate slows down. Because doctor didn’t know how to treat this ,they often cut patient views and let the blood flow. and have their blood drip into a bowl until the doctor thought the disease was removed from the person.   But this method killed more people than it saved because draining the blood of really weak. A book with pain, suffering, happiness, loss everything you need in this crisis time.The author did so much research  on the topic yellow fever.  Being an adult I completely forgot this book is for teenagers .

The book is definitely not for young adult, it will be boring for them to understand history. But I would recommend  adults to read this specially when the entire world is going through a situation like this.