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No teenage girl, no matter how devoted her parents are to Shakespeare, deserves to be named, Hamlet. It’s so unfair. To their credit, her parents did consider naming her Ophelia, but desisted because they thought she was too tragic a character! Hamlet’s younger sister is Desdemona, a math and science prodigy at age seven, is in Hamlet's grade 8 class. She was actually supposed to go to college but wasn't allowed to pick a major because they had not taken art and music classes. The ultimate tragedy, however, is that whenever their parents visit them in school, they dress in 16th Century Elizabethan finery!

Hamlet Kennedy thought she had nothing in common with her weird family. But the perfect recitation of a Shakespearean, passage wins her the part of Puck in the school’s staging of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream". Through, the rehearsals and various other experiences involving her family and classmates, she realises she is every bit as special as her family is. She was struggling to ‘fit in' when all she needed to do was be herself.

 

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Reading a Ruskin Bond is very easy. All you need is a quiet corner, a comfortable chair and steaming cup of coffee. Ah, and don’t forget to wrap yourself in a cosy shawl or a blanket. Why? Because it can get chilly, up there in the mountains, where most of Bond’s stories unfold.

Set in the hills and valleys of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, where he spent the most cherished moments of his childhood, Bond’s books give you a glimpse of life on the snow-covered and Deodar-dotted landscapes. Like the misty mountains, Bond’s stories unravel slowly, and leave a deep impression on your mind. Before you know it, Rusty, Binya, Uncle Ken and Rakesh Bond’s unforgettable characters – have become your companions.

Such is the magic of Bond, Ruskin Bond. Generations and generations have grown up reading his books – he has been writing for 70 years now – and yet the bespectacled, rosy-cheeked storyteller from the hills, never seems to run out of yarn.

And last month in July, the octogenarian marked his seventh decade in his literary career, the only way he knows how – by writing another book. This time a part of his memoir series.

Telling his story

Set in 1951, the illustrated book “Song of India” traces the beginning of Bond’s writing career. It follows a 16-year-old Bond as he leaves for England, where he found his calling as a writer and worked on his first book “The Room on the Rook”.

The fourth installment in his memoir series, “A Song of India”, continues Bond’s reflection on his life which began with “Looking for the Rainbow” (2017) and “Till the Clouds Roll By” (2017), “Coming Round the Mountain” was the third book in the series.

What makes his work – the memoirs as well as his other books – special is that Bond always leaves a piece of himself in his stories. And as we get familiar with his characters, we get to know the author himself. So here’s a look at some of the classic Bond characters over the years.

Meet Bond’s classic characters

In a career spanning over 70 years, Bond has written over 600 stories

• Rusty: In “The Room on the Roof”, we meet the willful and rebellious Rusty, a character Bond partially based on himself.


• Mehmood: The pride Mehmood takes in making his kites will make you fall in love with this character from the story “Kite Maker.”


• Uncle Ken: A character based on Bond’s maternal uncle, his eccentricities and misadventures make him a complete laugh riot. And so the stories he appears in are also aptly named “Crazy Times with Uncle Ken” and “At Sea with Uncle Ken.”

Did you know?

• Bond received €50 for his publication “The Room on the Roof”.


• Some of Bond’s stories like “’The Blue Umbrella’ and ‘Susanna’s Seven Husbands” have been adopted to Bollywood films. The Hindi film J”unoon” is based on Bond’s historic novella “A Flight of Pigeons.”


• His favourite and the first book he read in his childhood was Ali in Wonderland: And Other Tall Tales.


• He wanted to be a tap dancer when he was young.


• Some of his famous works are “School Days”, “Funny Side Up”, “Garland of Memories”, “Rusty – The Boy from Hills”, “The Room on the Roof”, “Landour Days – A Writer’s Journal”, “A Town Called Dehra”, and “Angry River”.


• He was awarded the Sahitya Academy Award in 1992 for “Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra”, his novel in English. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1999 and the Padma Bhushan in 2014.

 

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During the recent coronavirus lockdown, friendships, were tested. Locked up in our homes, we couldn’t meet our friends for months. Daily chats, gossip sessions, and even birthdays moved online. Video calls and phone calls continued to strengthen the bonds. Friendship overcame the walls put up by the pandemic, and that’s exactly what author Harshikaa Udasi’s new book. “Friends Behind Walls” is all about.

Set in the sleepy town of Deolali, close to Nashik in Maharashtra, it is a story of two children, Inu and Putti who form an unlikely friendship despite the animosity between their families.

Putti, a city-bred boy, is excited to spend his summer vacation in Deolali. But he soon finds out that the town doesn’t have any kids of his age to play with, except Inu. But his parents forbid him from even talking to Inu because of a long-standing feud between their families.

Not wanting to give up on their newly formed friendship, the duo decide to solve the mystery behind their family feud. On their quest, they are helped by Mr. Om Namaha and Dr. Solanki. But Inu and Putti have to visit the fearsome Tekdichi Mhatari, who lives up the hill to find answers!

What inspired the book

When Udasi visited Deolali for the first time 15 years ago, she was struck by how deserted the place looked – there were no children to be seen anywhere. “There are many sanitariums in Deolali, so a lot of elderly people stay here because it is beautiful and green, but there were hardly any children,” says Udasi, who now has a second home in Deolali.

One day, she observed that a couple of children in her neighbourhood had actually made a hole in the wall between their houses so that they could talk to each other. “These two would use the hole to sneak into each other’s houses. And so I imagined what it would be like if the kids were doing this because the families were at loggerheads with each other,” says Udasi.

In fact, she had a similar experience when she was growing up. “There was a family which never got along with my family so I never got a chance to be friends with their kids,” she adds. “So I put the two concepts together and come up with the book.”

The message of bonhomie

“Friends Behind Walls” explores why its important to preserve the bond of friendship and not fight over trivial things. “Friendships born in childhood are really the biggest bond one can have,” says Udasi.

The book begins with a striking sentence, “There should be a big giant eraser for all our past wrongs.” Udasi credits her 10-year-old son Krishang for coming up with this line when they were having a discussion on the Citizenship Amendment Act. “I was talking to my son about the conflicts between different religions and ethnicities when he said that this is all so complicated, I wish there was a giant eraser for our past,” says Udasi.

Know the author

Harshikaa Udasi is a journalist and author from Mumbai. She forayed into children’s writing after spending 19 years in journalism. Her first children’s book “Kittu’s Very Mad Day”, published in July 2017, is the story of a 10-year-old physically challenged boy who is accidentally left behind by his family in Madhya Pradesh. He comes across a skate park and learns to skate and face his fears. It won the prestigious 2018 FICCI Publishing Award for Best English Children’s Book and was shortlisted for the MAMI Word to Screen 2017.

She also runs a reading club, “The Book Trotters” to encourage children to think creatively and independently. During the lockdown, the club meets online.

Popular works

“I Absolutely Totally Instantly Have to Have A Dog” and “Kittu’s Very Mad Day”. She has contributed short stories to “On Your Marks: The Book of Crazy Exam Stories” and “Flipped: Adventure Stories Gost Stories.”

 

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Walk into any bookstore and you will find row upon rows of children’s books. From Beatrix Potter’s “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” and Roald Dahl’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” to colourful pictures books by Quentin Blake, young readers today are spoilt for choice. But have you ever wondered who wrote the first children’s book? Or what it was about? Read on to find out…

“Orbis Pictus”

Author Jan Komensky, also known as John Amos Comenius, is widely regarded to have written the earliest known children’s book (considered to be the first at least in Europe and the U.S.). Titled “Orbis Sensualium Pictus”, it was one of the firs books aimed at children, unlike grammar handbooks and treatises meant for teachers. Focused on the visual element, the book is full of pictures, 150 to be exact, covering a range of things: animals, nature, the elements and religion.

When was it published?

It was first published in Latin and German in Nuremberg in 1658. Comenius, who was born in Northern Moravia (now in the Czech Republic), was a teacher who wanted to create a book that could be read by children of all ages. It was initially published in black and white; colour was added to later editions.

Did you know?

• Comenius’ book was a hit across Europe and was translated into several other languages.


• Despite the book being incredibly popular, few copies have survived. Many of these have won out pages because children returned to the pictures over and over again.


• It opens with: “Come, boy, learn to be wise.” The student asks, “What does this meant, to be wise?” His teacher answers, “To understand rightly, to do rightly, and to speak out rightly all that are necessary.” (taken from an English translation of the book)


• The Orbis Pictus Award established in 1989 recognised excellence in non-fiction writing for children.

What does the “Orbis Sensualium Pictus” mean?

The Latin title translates to ‘The Visible World’ or ‘The World Around Us in Pictures.’ Each picture has captions in Latin, and in the language of the country it was published in.

At the time, Latin was commonly taught in schools. It was the language used by the monarchy and the clergy across much of Europe. It was also the language that the Bible was in.

 

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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling and the second novel in the Harry Potter series. The book was published in the United Kingdom on 2 July 1998 by Bloomsbury and later in the United States on 2 June 1999 by Scholastic Inc. Although Rowling says she found it difficult to finish the book, it won high praise and awards from critics, young readers, and the book industry, although some critics thought the story was perhaps too frightening for younger children. Much like with other novels in the series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets triggered religious debates; some religious authorities have condemned its use of magical themes, whereas others have praised its emphasis on self-sacrifice and the way one's character is the result of one's choices.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was published in the UK on 2 July 1998 and in the US on 2 June 1999. It immediately took first place in UK bestseller lists, displacing popular authors such as John Grisham, Tom Clancy, and Terry Pratchett and making Rowling the first author to win the British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year for two years in succession. In June 1999, it went straight to the top of three US bestseller lists, including in The New York Times.

First edition printings had several errors, which were fixed in subsequent reprints. Initially, Dumbledore said Voldemort was the last remaining ancestor of Salazar Slytherin instead of his descendant. Gilderoy Lockhart's book on werewolves is entitled Weekends with Werewolves at one point and Wanderings with Werewolves later in the book.

 

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A used book or secondhand book is a book which has been owned before by an owner other than the publisher or retailer, usually by an individual or library. Some new book shops also carry used books, and some used book shops also sell new books. Though the original authors or publishers will not benefit financially from the sale of a used book, it helps to keep old books in circulation. Sometimes very old, rare, first edition, antique, or simply out of print books can be found as used books in used book shops. A number of small towns have become centres for used book sellers, most notably Hay-on-Wye in South Wales. They act as a magnet for buyers, and are located in country areas of great scenic beauty.

Used bookstores (usually called "second-hand bookshops" in Great Britain) buy and sell used books and out-of-print books. A range of titles is available in used bookstores, including in print and out-of-print books. Book collectors tend to frequent used book stores. Used bookstores can range in size offering from several hundred to several hundred thousands of titles. They may be brick-and-mortar stores, internet-only stores, or a combination of both. A book town is a locale where numerous bookstores are located and serve as the town's main attraction to tourists.

 

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In 1867, Alexander Melville Bell published the book Visible Speech: The Science of Universal Alphabetics. This book contains information about the system of symbols he created that, when used to write words, indicated pronunciation so accurately, that it could even reflect regional accents. A person reading a piece of text handwritten in Melville Bell's system of characters could accurately reproduce a sentence the way it would be spoken by someone with a foreign or regional accent. In his demonstrations, Melville Bell employed his son, Alexander Graham Bell to read from the visible speech transcript of the volunteer's spoken words and would astound the audience by saying it back exactly as the volunteer had spoken it. Melville Bell's system was effective at helping deaf people improve their pronunciation, but his son Graham Bell decided to improve upon his father's invention by creating a system of writing that was even more accurate and employed the most advanced technology of the time.

Melville's works on Visible Speech became highly notable, and were described by Édouard Séguin as being "...a greater invention than the telephone by his son, Alexander Graham Bell". Melville saw numerous applications for his invention, including its worldwide use as a universal language. However, although heavily promoted at the Second International Congress on Education of the Deaf in Milan, Italy in 1880, after a period of a dozen years or so in which it was applied to the education of the deaf, Visible Speech was found to be more cumbersome, and thus a hindrance, to the teaching of speech to the deaf, compared to other methods, and eventually faded from use.

 

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