9/15/2023 0 Comments So lyrical by trish cookfree book![]() Hiranandani establishes food as a metaphor: the despair of their journey across the border into India is conveyed by the absence of food and water, and cooking rituals. When the novel concludes, Nisha is aware, as she cooks alongside Kazi, that even though she left home, the most important elements of home - the people she loves – came with her. Food is a way to celebrate with family and friends, such as when Nisha’s family hosts a “Goodbye Party.” Food grounds Nisha and Amil, almost literally, in their home, such as when they eat cucumbers in their garden. Throughout her childhood, food is fundamental to Nisha’s sense of security her relationship with Kazi provides her with a sense of intimacy when Papa feels distant and remote. Food is a way for Nisha to communicate her love without words. ![]() Within the novel, Hiranandani pays careful attention to food. Have them consider how their own diary entries are growing, changing, or staying the same.įood as Culture, Food as Sustenance. As your students make their way through the novel, have them note the different ways in which Nisha’s diary entries grow and change. ![]() If keeping a “Night Diary” is impossible, you can have your students write in their diary at school. Encourage them to write about whatever is on their mind about the day. ![]() A couple of weeks before your students start reading the novel, send them home with notebooks or stapled pieces of paper that they personalize, and ask them to start writing a diary entry each night. You could bring up mindfulness as part of this conversation. Make sure to make time for talk about why they think these routines and hobbies help them. If they have special adults in their lives that mentor them in their hobbies, much like Kazi does for Nisha, invite those special adults in to teach their skills to the rest of the class. What are some of the calming routines, hobbies, and habits of your students? Make time for students to share their hobbies and talents with one another. Over the course of the novel, we see Nisha begin to understand that cooking does the same for her, as it provides her with a sense of continuity amidst change, comfort amidst chaos, and control when she has none regarding her family’s fate. Throughout the novel, readers see Amil turn to his drawing to avoid chores, to keep himself occupied when stuck inside, and to distract himself from the challenges his family faces. Indeed, as Nisha writes, “ou can’t split love” (p. After being pulled from their home and so much that they loved, Nisha and her family are reunited with their beloved Karzi, who was always more family than cook. Loosely based on the author’s father’s childhood experiences during the Partition, it is ultimately, a story of love. This is a story of family and identity of religious differences and the ways that humans overcome them again and again and of an important historical moment whose effects endure to this day. Hiranandani’s writing reads like poetry – sparse, lyrical, and descriptive all at once. Nisha initially writes to her mother out of loneliness, but by the end of the novel, she promises to write for her mother, promising that “no matter what happens, you will not be alone” (p. Nisha writes to her dead mother about the events of their journey as well as her struggle to speak and her brother’s inability to read because “the words jump around and change on him” (p. As they travel, they face armed refugees, deprivation of food and water, sadness and uncertainty. Soon, Nisha and her family must leave their home, now in Pakistan behind, and head to safety in Jodhpur they must leave Kazi behind, too. A month after Nisha receives her diary, on August 14, 1947, Britain relinquishes rule over India after almost two hundred years, and India is partitioned into two countries: Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India. Having grown up with their father and their grandmother, Nisha and Amil know very little about their Muslim mother, aside from her paintings, which her father keeps hidden. Nisha decides to use the diary as a way to write to her mother, who died while giving birth to Nisha and her twin brother Amil. ![]() In presenting it to her, he tells her it is meant to “make a record of the things that will happen because the grown-ups will be too busy” (p. The diary is given to her by Kazi, the Muslim cook who works for Nisha’s Hindu family. The novel unfolds in the form of a diary kept by Nisha from Jto November 10, 1947. So observes twelve-year-old Nisha, the protagonist of Veera Hiranandani’s gorgeous historical novel that offers contemporary readers a window on the Partition of India and Pakistan, the largest human migration in history, and an event that American students, and perhaps teachers, are likely to know little to nothing about. “Wasn’t independence from the British supposed to free us? We’ve never been less free” (p. Published by Dial Books for Young Readers, 2018 ![]()
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