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Ruskin Bond has been writing stories for children for over six decades now, delighting and enchanting each new generation of readers with his heart-warming tales of friendship, love and coming-of-age. Curated in this essential collection are some of his best-loved stories, designed to introduce the young reader to Ruskin’s cast of beloved characters – from the irrepressible Rusty, with his constant thirst for adventure, to his Grandfather, with his overflowing kindness towards all creatures great and small, from the resolute Bina, who braves a leopard to walk to school, to Suraj and Sunder Singh, who become unlikely friends. Including classic tales such as ‘The Girl on the Train’, ‘Coming Home to Dehra’, ‘The Room of Many Colours’ and ‘The Blue Umbrella’, in turns funny, touching, whimsical and nostalgic, this collection is a must-read for children and adults alike.
From the Publisher
Conversation with Ruskin Bond
An Introduction by Ruskin Bond
To say something about the ‘essential Bond,’ makes me feel as though I am an essential ingredient in a recipe for some exotic dish. I wouldn’t mind the exotic dish provided I’m not an ingredient. I’m told that an ancestor of mine fell prey to a group of cannibals on a remote Pacific island, and was served up with breadfruit and shark-fin soup. If that be the case, I’d rather remain ‘inessential’.
Occasionally I have to look in a mirror. And what do I see? Purple nose, double chin, double tummy. That’s the ‘essential’ Bond at eighty, I suppose. And in many ways I am a very physical person. I still write by hand. My ball-point or roller-ball pen glides over the surface of the paper without any effort. It has had years of practice. It is the link between my hand and my heart, or between my mind and the letters that form on this writing-pad. Nothing else will do now.
I find typing too mechanical. I tried dictating once, but became self-conscious, unable to express myself in ‘true sentences’.
Everyone has his or her own way of writing. The ‘essential’Bond likes the physical contact with paper.
This volume is a pretty good mix of stories written over a period of sixty years of putting pen to paper. I must have gone through two or three thousand pens during that time. I did not keep the pens, but I kept most of the stories—a few hundred of them, anyway, starting with The Room on the Roof when I was just out of school. In those days, most of us in India travelled by train, the air services still being in their infancy, and a number of my early stories took place on trains or at railway stations. You had only to spend an hour on a railway platform to get a story!
After a few years in London and New Delhi, I came to live in the hills, and this is where I have written most of my stories, even those that look back upon my childhood and boyhood in Dehradun and elsewhere. But they are not presented in any particular order. Each story stands on its own. It could have been written anywhere and at any time. Sometimes a young reader comes up to me and asks, ‘What happened to that girl on Deoli platform—the girl with the baskets—the one you couldn’t forget?’
Well, that story was written over fifty years ago, and it’s nice to know that the young reader of today is touched by it. I am now ‘old and grey and full of sleep’, but that girl on the platform is still there, as young and beautiful and sweet as ever, and I still see her in my dreams. That’s the ‘essential’ Bond—still dreaming…
Ruskin Bond
May 2015
Read this book to enter the fascinating world of Ruskin Bond with his most beloved stories. The stories included in this collection are,
All Creatures Great and Small, The Four Feathers, Growing up with Trees, The Funeral, Coming Home to Dehra, Our Great Escape, The Last Tonga Ride, The Night Train at Deoli, The Coral Tree, Love and Cricket, The Night the Roof Blew off, The Photograph, The Tunnel, The Overcoat, The Girl on the Train, The Woman on Platform No. 8, The Fight, A Long Walk for Bina, A Case for Inspector Lal, The Thief’s Story, The Trouble with Jinns, Adventures in Reading and The Blue Umbrella.
ASIN : 8129137003
Publisher : Rupa Publications India; first edition (9 June 2015)
Language : English
Paperback : 192 pages
ISBN-10 : 9788129137005
ISBN-13 : 978-8129137005
Item Weight : 227 g
Dimensions : 12.9 x 1.24 x 19.81 cm
books for teenagers
