The Partition Project
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
In this engaging and moving middle grade novel, Saadia Faruqi writes about a contemporary Pakistani American girl whose passion for journalism starts a conversation about her grandmother’s experience of the Partition of India and Pakistan—and the bond that the two form as she helps Dadi tell her story.
When her grandmother comes off the airplane in Houston from Pakistan, Mahnoor knows that having Dadi move in is going to disrupt everything about her life. She doesn’t have time to be Dadi’s unofficial babysitter—her journalism teacher has announced that their big assignment will be to film a documentary, which feels more like storytelling than what Maha would call “journalism.”
As Dadi starts to settle into life in Houston and Maha scrambles for a subject for her documentary, the two of them start talking. About Dadi’s childhood in northern India—and about the Partition that forced her to leave her home and relocate to the newly created Pakistan.
As details of Dadi’s life are revealed, Dadi’s personal story feels a lot more like the breaking news that Maha loves so much. And before she knows it, she has the subject of her documentary.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Only the facts matter to 12-year-old aspiring journalist Mahnoor Raheem, so when she partners on a study project for English class with best friend Kim Hoang, Maha finds herself largely uninterested in the fiction books Kim suggests they read. Maha instead focuses on her media studies assignment for which she must create a short documentary with a storytelling hook. Her unlikely subject is Dadi, her gruff Pakistani grandmother, who lives with Maha and her parents following a permanent move to Sugar Land, Tex. Initially resentful of Dadi's sudden arrival, Maha is soon drawn to her grandmother's childhood stories, especially as Maha's busy parents have imparted little of their Pakistani heritage. Through Dadi, Maha learns of the Partition, the violent severing of British India into Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India, as well as the horrors her grandmother witnessed as a young refugee. Meanwhile, Kim views Maha's preoccupation with Dadi's stories as interfering with their English project, and their friendship fractures. In this vivid rendering of how growing cultural awareness and identity exploration can shape one's adolescence, Faruqi (Yusuf Azeem Is Not a Hero) presents an empowering story of family that will bolster tweens negotiating blended identities. Supporting characters are racially diverse. Ages 8–12.
