Ruskin Bond's first novel, The Room on the Roof, written when he was seventeen, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957. Since then he has written several novellas (including Vagrants in the Valley, A Flight of Pigeons and Delhi Is Not Far), essays, poems and children's books, many of which have been published by Penguin India. He has also written over 500 short stories and articles that have appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1993 and the Padma Shri in 1999.
Ruskin Bond was born in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, and grew up in Jamnagar, Dehradun, Delhi and Shimla. As a young man, he spent four years in the Channel Islands and London. He returned to India in 1955 and has never left the country since. He now lives in Landour, Mussoorie, with his adopted family.
A chronicle of Rusty's rebellious, eventful progression into manhood.
Rusty, having run away from his guardian's home, is now trying to define his identity as he lives with the Kapoor family, tutoring their son Kishen and occupying the room on the roof.
Soon, he becomes close to Kishen and, in the company of Meena Kapoor, begins to come into his own as an individual. Then tragedy strikes-Meena's death evastates Rusty, and he leaves Dehra. Rusty and Kishen take to the open road, and their adventures accumulate as they tramp through the Doon valley and the Garhwal hills.
Full of incident as well as introspection, this is a book older children will thoroughly enjoy.
