Book Review: The Partition Project by Saadia Faruqi

Publisher’s 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.

Amanda’s thoughts

I absolutely loved this book. I love when we meet a character who is not perfect. Perfect people are boring, not to mention completely unrelatable and not realistic at all. Maha is a wonderful main character, but she has flaws. She’s supremely grumpy about her grandmother, Dadi, arriving from Pakistan to live with Maha’s family, taking her room and relegating Maha to the attic. Maha is at times narrow-minded (why bother with novels/fiction when it’s not even real?), she’s not always a great friend, and she isn’t the best communicator. And NONE of that is a slam on her. She’s 12. She’s growing and learning and facing a lot of changes. I loved watching her mess up and take ownership over those messes, make mistakes but also make apologies. She’s a great character. She’s a great kid.

The arrival of Dadi really changes a lot of Maha’s life, and not just because she has a different bedroom. Maha’s Pakistani American family is Muslim, like Dadi, but it doesn’t seem to play the same role in their lives as it does for Dadi. As Maha watches her pray and listens to her only offer up tiny pieces of her past (then clam up and clearly not want to talk about the past), she starts to have questions. Maha wants to be a journalist when she grows up and is currently in a media studies class at school. In need of a documentary subject, she begins to learn all about Partition through her grandmother’s stories. The more she learns, the more questions she has. She begins to talk to the other desi folks at the senior center she goes to with Dadi. She reaches out to a curator of an archive of stories about Partition. While still somewhat hesitant, Dadi eventually shares her entire harrowing story of being just 12 herself when her family was forced to flee and make a new home. For Maha, who is generally fixated the news of NOW, current events, learning to see the importance of history and its connections to now is a powerful revelation.

This powerful look at history, heritage, family, and the power of story is a great read with wide appeal. Don’t miss it.

Review copy (ARC) courtesy of the author

ISBN-13: 9780063115811
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date: 02/27/2024
Age Range: 8 – 12 Years

Filed under: Book Reviews