February 27, 2024 by Quill Tree Books
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus
Maha Raheem thinks that her family, including dietician mother, doctor father, and older basketball playing brother Talha, is perfect. Of course, she only thinks that because now that her father's mother, Dadi, is coming from Pakistan to live with them, her life is ruined. Maha is very invested in the idea that she can become a journalist when she grows up, and is irritated that her media class is assigned to do a documentary. She had hoped they would write news articles. She's also irritated that she has to "babysit" Dadi, who is almost 90, and has some aches and pains. Dadi isn't all that thrilled, either, because she doesn't feel as useful as she did back home, where she was retired from teaching math. When Maha starts to listen to her grandmother relate stories about her childhood, she is amazed to find out about the Partition of India, and learns that her grandmother was forced to leave her home and start over in Pakistan. As she gets to know more about her grandmother's life and how it intersects with history, Maha uses this information for her school project. She interviews her grandmother, as well as others at the Senior Center the two visit every Saturday. She also learns some things about modern day Pakistan from new student, Ahmed, whose family has just moved from there. Her interest in this project does run her afoul of her best friend, Kim, who is working with her on another school project involved The Lightning Thief, and after the two fight because Maha isn't reading the book, Maha tries to make it up to her friend by honoring her friend's Korean ancestry and reporting on Lai's Inside Out and Back Again. Maha has a new appreciation for history and its part in news reporting, and also comes to enjoy having her grandmother living with the family, especially since her cooking is much better than Maha's mother and brother's!
Strengths: Maha is a typical middle school student who gets heavily invested in her own interests and tends to forget other things, like her book project with Kim. Her family is realistically busy, and Dadi's arrival seems fairly typical of how grandparents are often added to family life. I was very glad that Maha was interested in the Partition, since it is my second favorite horrible historical event, right behind the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. More people should know about it, and this is a fast paced book that includes just enough friend and family drama to make it an easy sell for students who, like Maha, aren't immediately interested in history. Faruqi has been a publishing powerhouse in the last few years, with everything from the early chapter book Meet Yasmin series (2018), A Place at the Table (with Laura Shovan, 2020), A Thousand Questions (2020), Must Love Pets (2022), Marya Khan (2022), the graphic novel Saving Sunshine (2023), and even the collective biography, The Wonders We Seek (2022).
Weaknesses: This was on the longer side, but also included a lot of different sub plots. Dadi's story is so important that I wished there were less about Tiffany and her grandfather and Maha's love of journalism so that the book concentrated more on Dadi and information about the Partition.
What I really think: This is a good choice for readers who want to learn more about the Partition and may have read Senzai's Ticket to India, those who like to read about struggles with identity, as in Kelkar's As American as Paneer Pie, or who want to know what it is like to have a grandparent move in with their family, ala Shang's The Great Wall of Lucy Wu. I feel like there are more books about grandparents coming (especially from other countries) to move in with a family with tweens and teens, but other than Smith's horribly dated 1984 The War with Grandpa, I can't seem to find them.
Weaknesses: This was on the longer side, but also included a lot of different sub plots. Dadi's story is so important that I wished there were less about Tiffany and her grandfather and Maha's love of journalism so that the book concentrated more on Dadi and information about the Partition.
What I really think: This is a good choice for readers who want to learn more about the Partition and may have read Senzai's Ticket to India, those who like to read about struggles with identity, as in Kelkar's As American as Paneer Pie, or who want to know what it is like to have a grandparent move in with their family, ala Shang's The Great Wall of Lucy Wu. I feel like there are more books about grandparents coming (especially from other countries) to move in with a family with tweens and teens, but other than Smith's horribly dated 1984 The War with Grandpa, I can't seem to find them.
Other middle grade books about the Partition include Bradbury's A Moment Comes (2013) and Outside In (2017), Senzai's Ticket to India (2015), Kelkar's Ahimsa (2017), and Hiranandani's The Night Diary (2018, mentioned in the book).
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