Based on the author's own family history, here is a moving story about a young girl from two different backgrounds. The girl’s mother tells her stories about her mother, a Jewish seamstress in Brooklyn, New York. She lived in a tiny two-bedroom apartment and sewed wedding dresses shimmering in satin and lace.
Her father tells stories of his mother, the girl’s other grandmother, who liked to cook bubbling dal on a coal stove in Pakistan. They tell stories about how both sides came to America, and how, eventually, her parents met on a warm summer evening in Poughkeepsie.
The girl sometimes feels as if she's the “only one like me.” One day, when she spots a butterfly in her yard, she realizes it’s okay to be different—no two butterflies are alike, after all. It’s okay to feel alone sometimes, but also happy and proud. It’s okay to feel-- and be-- many things at once.
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PRAISE FOR MANY THINGS AT ONCE
"This thoughtful portrait explores the doubt that many interfaith and biracial children feel about not fully belonging....A quiet reflection on belonging and acceptance." --Kirkus Reviews
"A tender personal story with universal themes of plurality that young readers will enjoy." —Booklist
"This picture book is a gentle, age-appropriate acknowledgement of how feeling “many things at once” is part of belonging to multiple cultures while still celebrating the rich histories and traditions of each." —The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
From Newbery Honor author Veera Hiranandani and National Book Award finalist Vesper Stamper comes a poignant story about the love between grandparents and grandchildren.
Grandpa loves Sundays-- that's when his three grandchildren come to visit. They act out plays, catch fireflies in the yard, and celebrate Jewish holidays together. His grandchildren bestow affection and admiration on him. Sometimes, though, he wonders why they think he's so great? Should he tell them that he's just an average, ordinary man?
Here is a book that wonderfully captures how simple, everyday moments can turn into treasured memories, and how the power of love makes us all the "greatest" to somebody.
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PRAISE FOR THE GREATEST
★ "A moving ode to family connection [and a] demonstrative work about the expansive strength of ordinary love." --Publishers Weekly, starred review
"A joyous, sweet, and tender tale of intergenerational love." --Kirkus Reviews
"An homage to the joyous bond between grandparents and grandchildren, this works as a read-aloud or for one-on-one sharing." --Booklist
At the turn of the new year in 1948, Amil and his family are trying to make a home in India, now independent of British rule.Both Muslim and Hindu, twelve-year-old Amil is not sure what home means anymore.
The memory of the long and difficult journey from their hometown in what is now Pakistan lives with him. And despite having an apartment in Bombay to live in and a school to attend, life in India feels uncertain.
Nisha, his twin sister, suggests that Amil begin to tell his story through drawings meant for their mother, who died when they were just babies. Through Amil, readers witness the unwavering spirit of a young boy trying to make sense of a chaotic world, and find hope for himself and a newly reborn nation.
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PRAISE FOR AMIL AND THE AFTER
Kirkus Starred:
"...a masterpiece of nuance, vulnerability, and emotional complexity. A quietly brilliant, deeply insightful story of living in uncertain times."
Booklist Starred:
"Searingly emotional... the fast-paced, multifaceted plot will keep readers engaged while bringing them to a satisfying resolution."
Shelf Awareness Starred:
“In Veera Hiranandani's Amil and the After, a tender companion to her 2019 Newbery Honor-winning The Night Diary, Amil, the fraternal twin of the first book's narrator, Nisha, takes center stage.” –Shelf Awareness, starred review
BookPage Starred:
"...an excellent work of historical fiction, seamlessly and sensitively integrating the personal and the political." --BookPage, starred review
School Library Journal Starred:
“Hiranandani effortlessly incorporates the tastes, sights, sounds, and history of India in engaging prose…Accessible and engrossing, readers unfamiliar with the historic partition of India and Pakistan will nevertheless readily relate to a boy’s yearning for stability in tumultuous times. A first purchase for all middle grade collections.”
The New York Times Book Review:
“Masterly… a book about hope, about a boy and his father, both hurt and vulnerable, navigating their traumas and finally surviving — apart and then together.”
The Horn Book Magazine:
"Fans of the previous title will appreciate this compassionate and thoughtful continuation of the family’s story, while new readers can experience Amil’s account of hope and survivor guilt as a standalone volume. "
Kirkus Starred:
"...a masterpiece of nuance, vulnerability, and emotional complexity. A quietly brilliant, deeply insightful story of living in uncertain times."
Booklist Starred:
"Searingly emotional... the fast-paced, multifaceted plot will keep readers engaged while bringing them to a satisfying resolution."
Shelf Awareness Starred:
“In Veera Hiranandani's Amil and the After, a tender companion to her 2019 Newbery Honor-winning The Night Diary, Amil, the fraternal twin of the first book's narrator, Nisha, takes center stage.” –Shelf Awareness, starred review
BookPage Starred:
"...an excellent work of historical fiction, seamlessly and sensitively integrating the personal and the political." --BookPage, starred review
School Library Journal Starred:
“Hiranandani effortlessly incorporates the tastes, sights, sounds, and history of India in engaging prose…Accessible and engrossing, readers unfamiliar with the historic partition of India and Pakistan will nevertheless readily relate to a boy’s yearning for stability in tumultuous times. A first purchase for all middle grade collections.”
The New York Times Book Review:
“Masterly… a book about hope, about a boy and his father, both hurt and vulnerable, navigating their traumas and finally surviving — apart and then together.”
The Horn Book Magazine:
"Fans of the previous title will appreciate this compassionate and thoughtful continuation of the family’s story, while new readers can experience Amil’s account of hope and survivor guilt as a standalone volume. "
Sixth-grader Ariel Goldberg's life feels like the moment after the final guest leaves the party. It's 1967 and after spending an exciting summer with her beloved older sister, everything comes to a crashing halt in the fall. Her family's Jewish bakery runs into financial trouble, her difficulties in school are the same as they ever were, and her older sister decides to elope with a young man from India following the 1967 Supreme Court Loving v. Virginia ruling which strikes down laws banning interracial marriage.
It's a lot for Ariel to handle as she's forced to grapple with both her family's prejudice and the antisemitism she experiences as she defines her own beliefs.
As change becomes Ariel's only constant, she's left to hone something that will be with her always--her own voice.
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PRAISE FOR HOW TO FIND WHAT YOU'RE NOT LOOKING FOR
The New York Times:
"What’s most striking about the book is how kind it is. People learn, forgive, try to do better. In a knee-jerk time (ours), it’s powerful to witness Ari’s realization that people can grow and change...It's a pretty astounding achievement."
School Library Journal Starred:
"The story centers on a tough conflict, and Hiranandani delivers an authentic depiction of reconciliation, with all its messiness and hurt feelings...A splendid historical fiction tale of bravery and determination."
Kirkus Starred:
"Sacrifices in the service of assimilation, the lies we tell the people we love most, and how we go about forgiving them are given specificity in Ari’s matter-of-fact and observant second-person present point of view. A powerful blend of important themes and everyday triumphs and sorrows."
Publisher's Weekly Starred:
Inspired by Newbery Honoree Hiranandani’s parents’ interracial marriage in 1968, the narrative, conveyed with deftness and insight in the second-person perspective, explores the benefits and costs of assimilation and the complexity of being both white and a religious minority in America then—and now.
Booklist:
"In this moving novel about a turbulent time, Ari and her family discover that what is most important is not what you think you want."
Adam Gidwitz, Newbery Honor-winning author of The Inquisitor's Tale:
“Gorgeously written and deeply moving, with a main character you can’t help but love, How to Find What You’re Not Looking For deals with the hardest act in one’s fight for justice—confronting the prejudice of those who are closest to us. Hiranandani is a master.”
The Buffalo News:
"Hiranandani offers a poignant exploration of a girl struggling to make sense of the world, both of the injustices and terrible events in the wider world and the mistakes she sees adults making all around her"
Imagination Soup Starred:
"Inspired by the author’s own family history, the authenticity of the story shines through every moment."
Reading Middle Grade:
"How to Find What You’re Not Looking For is a poignant, moving, and brilliantly written middle grade novel about family, identity, and love."
It's 1947, and India, newly independent of British rule, has been separated into two countries: Pakistan and India. The divide has created much tension between Hindus and Muslims, and hundreds of thousands are killed crossing borders. Half-Muslim, half-Hindu twelve-year-old Nisha doesn't know where she belongs, or what her country is anymore.
When Papa decides it's too dangerous to stay in what is now Pakistan, Nisha and her family become refugees and embark first by train but later on foot to reach her new home. The journey is long, difficult, and dangerous, and after losing her mother as a baby, Nisha can't imagine losing her homeland, too. But even if her country has been ripped apart, Nisha still believes in the possibility of putting herself back together. Told through Nisha's letters to her mother, The Night Diary is a story of one girl's search for home, for her own identity...and for a hopeful future.
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PRAISE FOR THE NIGHT DIARY
The New York Times:
"...the family's dramatic journey will keep readers to the end. The finale -- unabashedly weepy, deeply cathartic -- is as satisfying as a long, cool, drink of water."
Publishers Weekly Starred:
“...Nisha grapples with issues of identity and the search for a home that remain quite timely.”
The Wall Street Journal:
"In this sensitive and ultimately hopeful story of endurance and love, Ms. Hiranandani handles violence and the threat of it deftly, but, as Nisha reflects: 'My childhood would always have a line drawn through it, the before and the after.' "
Kirkus Starred:
"Believable and heartbreaking…A gripping, nuanced story of the human cost of conflict appropriate for both children and adults.”
The Washington Post:
"With Nisha, readers experience the fear and danger of displacement, take joy in a soothing rain and small bowl of lentils, and try to imagine a new, safe home in a faraway place."
School Library Journal Starred:
“This rich, compelling story, which speaks to the turbulence surrounding India’s independence and to the plight of refugees, should be in all libraries.”
The San Francisco Chronicle:
"This searing novel is not so much about what’s right or wrong with partition but rather what’s right and wrong with people caught in historical crosshairs."
School Library Connection Starred:
"A remarkable poignant epistolary tale."
Pooja Makhijani for Teen Vogue:
"Hiranandani’s portrayal of this period of world history, which is rarely studied in American classrooms, is searing and nuanced."
Shelf Awareness Starred:
"Nisha and Amil, with their individual interests, talents and convincingly changeable relationship, are protagonists sure to appeal to young readers."
James Howe, author of The Misfits:
“This riveting and important book speaks to the power of love in a world divided by hate and raises questions that still need to be asked seventy years after its events took place. Nisha and her story are a part of me now. My question is how do we make this a ‘community read’ for the whole world?”
Renée Watson, author of Coretta Scott King Award and Newbery Honor-winning Piecing Me Together:
“The Night Diary is a treasure for young readers who are searching for their place in the world, who are determined to bring home with them wherever they go.”
Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, author of Newbery Honor–winning The War That Saved My Life:
“...Hiranandani’s story is set in an historical time little known to American children, but she tells it in a way that makes it accessible, timely, interesting, and real.”
After her father loses his job, Sonia Nadhamuni, half Indian and half Jewish American, finds herself yanked out of private school and thrown into the unfamiliar world of public education. For the first time, Sonia's mixed heritage makes her classmates ask questions—questions Sonia doesn't always know how to answer—as she navigates between a group of popular girls and other students who aren't part of the "in" crowd.
At the same time that Sonia is trying to make new friends, she's dealing with what it means to have an out-of-work parent—it's hard for her family to adjust to their changed circumstances. And then, one day, Sonia's father goes missing. Now Sonia wonders if she ever really knew him. As she begins to look for answers, she must decide what really matters and who her true friends are—and whether her two halves, no matter how different, can make her a whole.
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PRAISE FOR THE WHOLE STORY OF HALF A GIRL
Kirkus Starred:
"Like Blume, Hiranandani resists simplistic, tidy solutions. Each excels in charting the fluctuating discomfort zones of adolescent identity with affectionate humor."
Publisher's Weekly Starred:
"True to life, her problems do not wrap up neatly, but Sonia’s growth is deeply rewarding in this thoughtful and beautifully wrought novel."
School Library Journal:
"Hiranandani’s thoughtful debut eloquently balances humor with sophisticated issues related to cultural identity, economic hardship, and mental health. An excellent addition with timeless appeal."
Booklist:
"Told in Sonia's wry present-tense voice, the mixed-race-family identity conflicts, as well as the universal contemporary drama of trying to act cool––and decent—will easily pull readers through this debut novel."
A Chair, A Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy:
"The Whole Story of Half a Girl is a fascinating look at class and money."
THE PHOEBE G. GREEN CHAPTER BOOK SERIES
PHOEBE G. GREEN HAS BEEN RERELEASED WITH NEW ART FROM CHRISTINE ALMEDA!
Phoebe loves her pet fish, Betty #2 (named after Betty #1, may she rest in peace), making lists, and her best friend Sage. But when Camille, a tall French girl, arrives at school with unusual lunches, Phoebe’s friendship with Sage doesn’t seem so important anymore. Thanks to Camille, Phoebe discovers goat cheese, butter lettuce, and cilantro (although she’s convinced that’s not a real word). She’s determined to get invited to her new friend’s house for dinner to see what other mysterious food Camille eats. But what about Sage?
Can Phoebe make a new friend and keep an old one?
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PRAISE FOR PHOEBE G. GREEN
Kirkus:
"With all the foodies out there, this delightful series deserves a long shelf life…and many more courses."
School Library Journal:
"Fans of Junie B. Jones and Judy Moody or those who like realistic fiction and friendship stories will enjoy..."
Booklist:
"Age-appropriate humor via an outspoken, lovable, take-charge narrator."
Through The Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews:
"In this sweetly funny (series) we meet a girl who has a hard time figuring out how to acquire a new and
interesting friend without losing her old and best friend...Readers will love sharing Phoebe’s adventure."
Phoebe loves her pet fish, Betty #2 (named after Betty #1, may she rest in peace), making lists, and her best friend Sage. But when Camille, a tall French girl, arrives at school with unusual lunches, Phoebe’s friendship with Sage doesn’t seem so important anymore. Thanks to Camille, Phoebe discovers goat cheese, butter lettuce, and cilantro (although she’s convinced that’s not a real word). She’s determined to get invited to her new friend’s house for dinner to see what other mysterious food Camille eats. But what about Sage?
Can Phoebe make a new friend and keep an old one?
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PRAISE FOR PHOEBE G. GREEN
Kirkus:
"With all the foodies out there, this delightful series deserves a long shelf life…and many more courses."
School Library Journal:
"Fans of Junie B. Jones and Judy Moody or those who like realistic fiction and friendship stories will enjoy..."
Booklist:
"Age-appropriate humor via an outspoken, lovable, take-charge narrator."
Through The Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews:
"In this sweetly funny (series) we meet a girl who has a hard time figuring out how to acquire a new and
interesting friend without losing her old and best friend...Readers will love sharing Phoebe’s adventure."
ANTHOLOGIES
From Persea Books: "When published in 1993, America Street was the very first collection of stories about young people growing up in our diverse society. It has informed and inspired hundreds of thousands of readers. Now this influential and much-loved anthology is expanded and updated for a new generation. Twenty stories, twelve new and eight returning favorites, focus on life issues, from the personal to the political: from making friends and keeping up traditions to the right to an equal education and to protest."
Authors included are: Duane Big Eagle, Marina Budhos, Norma Elia Cantú, Sandra Cisneros, Lan Samantha Chang, Tope Folarin, Rivka Galchen, Joseph Geha, Veera Hiranandani, Langston Hughes, Gish Jen, Edward P. Jones, Francisco Jiménez, Mary K. Mazotti, Toshio Mori, Naomi Shihab Nye, Susan Power, Gary Soto, Justin Torres, and Michele Wallace.
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From Philomel Books: "In a collection of personal stories and essays, award-winning and bestselling artists from Matt de la Peña and Veera Hiranandani to Max Brallier and R. L. Stine write about how hope always wins, even in the darkest of times. Where does hope live? In your family? In your community? In your school? In your heart? From a family restaurant to a hot-dog shaped car, from an empty road on a moonlight night to a classroom holiday celebration, this anthology of personal stories from award-winning and bestselling authors, shows that hope can live everywhere, even—or especially—during the darkest of times. No matter what happens: Hope wins."
Contributors include: Tom Angleberger, James Bird, Max Brallier, Julie Buxbaum, Pablo Cartaya, J.C. Cervantes, Soman Chainani, Matt de la Peña, Stuart Gibbs, Adam Gidwitz, Karina Yan Glaser, Veera Hiranandani, Hena Khan, Gordon Korman, Janae Marks, Sarah Mlynowski, Rex Ogle, James Ponti, Pam Muñoz Ryan, Ronald L.Smith, Christina Soontornvat, and R.L. Stine.
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From Inkyard Press: "From platonic and romantic love to grief and heartbreak, these stories explore navigating life at the intersection of identities, and what it means to grow up surrounded by a multitude of traditions, languages, cultures, and interpersonal dynamics. Returning to a father’s homeland. Trying to fit in at chaotic weddings and lavish birthday parties where not all are welcome. Processing grief at family gatherings. Figuring out how to share the news of a new relationship with loved ones. This collection celebrates multicultural and multiracial characters at the helm of their own narratives, as they approach life with a renewed sense of hope and acceptance."
Featuring original stories from: Adi Alsaid, Rebecca Balcárcel, Akemi Dawn Bowman, Anika Fajardo, Shannon Gibney, I.W. Gregorio, Veera Hiranandani, Nasugraq Rainey Hopson, Emiko Jean, Erin Entrada Kelly, Torrey Maldonado, Mélina Mangal, Goldy Moldavsky, Randy Ribay, Loriel Ryon, Tara Sim, Eric Smith, Jasmine Warga, Ismée Williams, and Karen Yin.
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From Abrams Books: Welcome to Passover, a Jewish holiday that has been celebrated for thousands of years. The heart of Passover is the seder—a meal full of rituals, special foods, and songs—where we gather together to retell the story of the Exodus, when the Jewish people achieved freedom from Egypt.
And yet this story is about more than the ancient past. The seder’s themes of freedom, joy, tradition, and more, are timeless and universal, for all.
In this collection of short stories, 14 bestselling and award-winning authors each reimagine a different step of the seder for today’s young readers. Through historical and contemporary fiction, verse and prose, fiction and nonfiction, these gifted writers from different Jewish traditions and backgrounds gather around the seder table and invite everyone to join them.
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Discover stories of fear, triumph, and spectacular celebration in the fictional town of Maple Grove, New Jersey, where the local kids gather at the community center to discover new crushes, fight against ignorance, and even save a life. Cheer for Chaya as she wins chess tournaments (unlike Andrew, she knows stupid sugary soda won't make you better at chess), and follow as Jeevan learns how to cook traditional food (it turns out he can cook sabji-- he just can't eat it).
These stories, edited by bestselling and award-winning Pakistani-American author Hena Khan, are filled with humor, warmth, and possibility. They showcase a diverse array of talented authors with heritage from the Indian subcontinent, including beloved favorites and rising stars, who each highlight the beauty and necessity of a community center that everyone calls home.
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Discover stories of fear, triumph, and spectacular celebration in the fictional town of Maple Grove, New Jersey, where the local kids gather at the community center to discover new crushes, fight against ignorance, and even save a life. Cheer for Chaya as she wins chess tournaments (unlike Andrew, she knows stupid sugary soda won't make you better at chess), and follow as Jeevan learns how to cook traditional food (it turns out he can cook sabji-- he just can't eat it).
These stories, edited by bestselling and award-winning Pakistani-American author Hena Khan, are filled with humor, warmth, and possibility. They showcase a diverse array of talented authors with heritage from the Indian subcontinent, including beloved favorites and rising stars, who each highlight the beauty and necessity of a community center that everyone calls home.
Order here!