Welcome to another delightful story set against the high hills of North India that the iconic Ruskin Bond truly loves!
True to Bond’s usual heartwarming, simple style, The Wonderful Stone is about a 12-year-old boy who spends his summer holidays with his Granny in a cottage on the outskirts of Mussoorie. He loves exploring the surrounding slopes and paths, especially a small stream at the foot of the hill. While wading through the water one day, he sees a most unusual stone—deep purple with red lines on one side and shaped like an outsized egg—among the pebbles! He is quite fascinated and takes the stone home to show his Granny. She admires it and lets him display it on the sitting room mantelpiece…its radiance catches the eye of everyone who sees it!
The maid, Bimla, feels it might be unlucky—but his cousin Roshan, who comes for a visit, is most enthralled and thinks it might contain a precious metal like lithium, strontium or even uranium! He is a big show-off and proceeds to give his younger cousin a lecture on rare earth minerals and how all countries on the planet need them for weapons, etc. He proceeds to even examine the stone with a magnifying glass, just in case he can discover something of value!
The story takes a turn when the stone disappears from the sitting room when the young boy is away trekking with some other boys. No one knows who has taken it, but he spots it many days later in a gem shop owned by a colourful local character. But before he can claim it, the lady he is temporarily working for as ‘spot boy’—for her proposed film, The Abominable Snowman—buys it for
` 1,000 as a sort of mascot for her company. However, after a while, she starts feeling that the stone is unlucky for her, because despite spending a lot of money and resources, the film never gets underway. She gets so frustrated that she hurls the stone out of the window and fires our hero as well!
What happens after this…?
Well, there is a twist in the tale—which you must read the book to find out! In fact, the story ends in a most mysterious way and is yet another example of the fine, fluid style of Ruskin Bond, whose over fifty children’s books drift gently around the serene Indian landscape, with their profound connections to nature and a deep empathy for all living creatures. The Wonderful Stone can be read with pleasure by any age—although it would be enthralling for young children, especially given its many illustrations and visually appealing layout.
More than anything else, Bond’s books are full of nature’s beauty and abundance, and he brings the landscape alive in this little gem of a book. You can almost smell the pines and hear the gurgle of the brook and long to be in those natural surroundings away from the heat and noise of the cities: an example yet again of this masterful storyteller effortlessly inculcating a love for nature in impressionable young minds—something sorely needed to save this planet.
In sum, this is a must-buy book for any young child, and they will thank you for it. But this reviewer also suggests that you read it yourself first for the simple pleasure of stepping back inside Ruskin Bond’s world and feeding your soul, gently, with a charm that lingers for long.