Ruskin Bond

Rakesh plants a cherry seedling in his garden and watches it grow. As seasons go by, the small tree survives heavy monsoon showers, a hungry goat that eats most of the leaves and a grass cutter who splits it into two with one sweep. At last, on his ninth birthday, Rakesh is rewarded with a miraculous sight-the first pink blossoms of his precious cherry tree!

As soon as Binya saw the beautiful blue silk umbrella she wanted it She wanted it so badly that she was willing to give her lucky leopards claw pendant in exchange No-one in the village had such a fine umbrella and everywhere Binya went the umbrella went too Gradually it faded to a pale blue and was patched in several places but there was still many who envied Binya her treasured possession And the most envious of them all was old Ram Bharosa the shopkeeper who decided that by some means he must own the blue umbrella.

Watch out as mischiefs and mischief-makers of all shapes and sizes come tumbling out in this hilarious collection of stories.

Is your school a hotspot for jokes? Do your family members regularly fall victim to pranks? Do ghosts and spooks get you into trouble? Find every kind of funny, crazy, impossible mischief in this book. Here you will find the girl who turned into a sloth just for her mother, the horse who went to the library and ate up some classics, the substitute teacher who saw dead people, the play where everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and many more amazing tales of pranks and troublemaking!

Here is a collection of stories about school life that will appeal to every kind of school-goer. These are incidents from the author’s own life, when he was a shy, quiet boy in boarding school, who chose the library over the football field, and was known as the best cook among the Boy Scouts.

Story 1 Mukesh and his friends decide to start a zoo. The laundryman’s donkey, a bunny, a pet parrot and dog become creatures of display at the little zoo. What adventures and misadventures are in store for the zoo and its owners? Story 2 Nathu, the bank’s sweeper-boy, is upset over not being paid for two months, whines th hi friend. Whispers follow and soon the whole town thinks the bank is bankrupt! How did Nathu’s worries turn into the bank being shut forever? Story 3 Romi hires a young Hari Singh to be his cook and companion. But Hari is upto no good. Will Hari ever learn the real meaning of loyalty, love and trust? These three funny, heart-warming stories capture the pure hilarious innocence of childhood and the lessons we take from them in these wonderfully illustrated stories from India’s mountainous countryside.