Book Description

for Amil and the After by Veera Hiranandani

From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)

The storytelling shines in this stand-alone sequel to The Night Diary set in India following Partition. Amil, 12, lives in a small apartment in Bombay with his twin, Nisha; their father; their grandmother, Dadi; and their family’s longtime employee and friend Kazi, who is Muslim. The trauma of exodus from their former home, located in newly created Pakistan, haunts Amil. He also simply misses their former life. Drawing is a release for Amil, and a way to feel close to his late mother, but it’s also a source of friction between Amil and his father, who wants him to work harder at his studies, something Amil struggles with. The contrast between Amil’s father’s and his father’s upbeat cousin, Ashok, who runs a cinema and whose life seems worry-free, helps Amil understand that the stress of their lives weighs on his father. But tensions at home rise higher when his father faces problems at work that increase his worries about the family’s future in Bombay, while Dadi, withdrawn and weak after their harrowing journey, has a fall that puts her in the hospital where he’s a doctor. And when Amil’s new friend Vishal, who lives in a nearby refugee camp and has lost his family, grows desperately ill, Amil is determined to get medical care for his friend, further complicating his father’s situation. This historical novel weaves in social and political issues of the times while never straying from Amil’s authentically childlike voice and perspective.