For children: In 1948, Amil and his family are trying to rebuild their lives in Bombay in free India

Amil lay stretched out on the daybed in the living room, trying to balance a thick charcoal pencil on the tip of his nose, his sketchbook sitting open on his chest. He finally got the pencil balanced, and it stood proudly, extending into the air.

“Look!” he said to Nisha, trying to keep his head still.

Nisha’s head jerked up from her writing just as the pencil toppled to the ground. She was always writing something. She used to write every day in her diary. Now she wrote secret stories she wouldn’t let anyone see. She stopped writing in her diary because she said it hurt too much to think about the before. She didn’t want to think about the old India – before their horrible walk across the new border; before Amil almost died and Dadi almost died; before the man with the knife tried to attack Nisha; before they saw what they saw on the train.

“You’re distracting me,” she said when the pencil hit the floor.

“Aw, you missed it,” Amil said.

“Missed what?” she asked, absorbed in her writing.

“Forget it,” he said and sighed.

He got up, grabbed the pencil off the cool tile floor, and plunked himself back on the daybed. He...

Read more