Veera Hiranandani (The Whole Story of Half a Girl) partially based The Night Diary on her own Hindu father's family's experience during the "largest mass migration in history."
Nisha and Amil, 12-year-old fraternal twins, are caught up in the Partition of India in August 1947. Nisha's Muslim mother gave birth to the twins and then died, leaving her Hindu husband to raise their Hindu/Muslim children. Nisha and Amil were brought up in a loving but incomplete family, which includes a Hindu grandmother and Muslim cook Kazi. Nisha and Kazi have a close relationship and, for the twins' birthday, Kazi gives Nisha a diary as a present. Every night, Nisha uses the diary to confide in the mother she never knew; it becomes her record of the period from July to November 1947. She recounts her comfortable life in a town where Hindus and Muslims got along, and follows that with the difficult trip. Young readers will need emotional maturity to read about the family's harrowing life on the road, although some lighthearted moments alleviate the harsh descriptions. Nisha and Amil are protagonists sure to appeal to young readers.