Great Trees of India

by Ruskin Bond

‘Why do you spend so much time in the trees?’ complained my grandmother. ‘Why not do something useful for a change?’
‘The trees are my brothers,’ I would say. ‘I like to play with them.’
From the banyans of the plains to the deodars of the hills and the mangroves of the coasts, the trees of India are the soul of our land and its people. Our memories and myths, our songs and superstitions—our land’s trees are an inextricable part of all of them.
Great Trees of India contains a selection of stories that are Ruskin Bond’s love letters to the trees that give this country its unique character. Let the master storyteller’s sensitive and warm prose transport you to afternoons spent under cool shade, with birdsong in the air as dust moats float in dappled sunlight—one of the timeless pleasures of life!

142 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 15, 2025

About the author

Ruskin Bond is an Indian author of British descent. He is considered to be an icon among Indian writers and children's authors and a top novelist. He wrote his first novel, The Room on the Roof, when he was seventeen which won John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957. Since then he has written several novellas, over 500 short stories, as well as various essays and poems, all of which have established him as one of the best-loved and most admired chroniclers of contemporary India. In 1992 he received the Sahitya Akademi award for English writing, for his short stories collection, "Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra", by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters in India. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1999 for contributions to children's literature. He now lives with his adopted family in Landour near Mussoorie.

Reviews

[Bookspective · Rating 3 out of 5]

A compilation of previously published works by the author, this collection largely features stories drawn from his personal experiences, reflecting his deep affection for nature—a sentiment familiar to any reader of Ruskin Bond’s writings. The selection also includes a few stories where trees are pivotal to the plot. While it is a fairly good compilation, I couldn’t help but wish that the author had written a fresh memoir celebrating his bond with nature, rather than the publishers continuing to reissue his earlier stories in various combinations. To be honest, some of the pieces feel repetitive, having already appeared in other collections.

[Kashi Ram · Rating 3 out of 5]

25 January 2025
Great Trees of India’ by Ruskin Bond
The Book ‘Great Trees of India’ by Ruskin Bond is a collection of his 24 writing in which he describes the trees, flowers, fruits and animal species he became grew with in the Himalayan region of India. He has woven stories around some trees and given only detailed description in some other cases. This is a good read for persons interested in flora and fauna of lower and middle Himalayas of Himachal, Jammu & Kashmir, Kumaon and Gadwal regions of India.