Description: Winner of the 2019 Newbery Honor Award. The day before her twelfth birthday, Nisha receives a diary as a gift. With a place to record the thoughts too difficult to speak aloud, Nisha begins to see the world through more mature eyes. At just that moment, everything around her starts to change dramatically. After gaining independence from centuries of British colonial rule, India is divided into Pakistan and India along religious lines, and tensions rise sharply between Hindus and Muslims. Nisha's father is Hindu, but her late mother was Muslim. In Nisha's hometown, people of all faiths have always lived together peacefully. But now everyone is being forced to choose a side, and some are even threatened to leave. Nisha cannot understand why she must make such a choice. Having lost her mother at birth, she cannot imagine also losing the home and hometown she has always known. In the end, her father decides it is too dangerous to stay, and Nisha and her family become refugees, setting out to find a new home across the border. Along the way, they narrowly escape death in the desert and endure a perilous train journey. Nisha records everything in her diary, writing it all as letters to her mother. Through Nisha's diary, The Night Diary tells the deeply moving and heartbreaking story of a girl's journey to find home, identity, and a hopeful future.