Childrens Literature 2

1.6.3 The Career of Ruskin Bond

Bond started his career as a junior clerk in a solicitor’s office at Jersey, then in a travel agency without any proper experience took over the third job in carrying pay packets to the workers in the Channel Island. The Room on the Roof, helped him to be awarded with “The John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize” (1957) and lighted bond’ career into a self esteemed position. It was the right beginning with all trivial experiences that made Bond to portray and express his thoughts in various genres of Literature (Amita Aggarwal, 3).

1.6.4 Works and Achievements

Ruskin Bond the pioneer of Children’s literature in India remains a tremendous writer and his contributions are several. Bond’s first novel “The Room on the Roof” (1956) won him ‘John Llewellyn Rhy’s Prize,’ a major British Literary prize in 1957 and ‘Sahitya Academy Award’ for his novel “Our Trees Still Grow in Delhi” (1991). After his first award bond decided to stay in India and began his writing career successfully spanned it for more than five decades. The government of India awarded him the ‘Padmabhushan’ title for his English Literature for children in 1999.one of Bond’s famous work The Angry River was published in India, France, Germany, Denmark and Italy. Bond’s works are of great interest to children, the protagonists are none other than the children themselves. For instance in The Blue Umbrella, the little girl Binya thinks that her beautiful Umbrella is a treasured possession and thinks very proud that she has got the best umbrella in her village. In the Hidden Pool winning a beetle race is as great as winning a big tournament. The animal stories are also of great interest, the Grandfathers’ Private Zoo , Tiger Tiger Burning Bright , and others stories are pleasure giving to children and factual. Bond has written several novels like, Vagrants in the Valley, A Flight of Pigeons and Delhi is Not Far, and a collection of essays like “The Lamp Is Lit”, poems, more than five hundr