Deal Me In Short Story Reading Challenge – 2 of 52.  I drew the 9 of hearts this week and that corresponds to any short story by Ruskin Bond. My list is here. 
I ended up reading more than one story from the book I have owned for
sometime now. Here is my review of the story (and the book).

Ruskin Bond is
a beloved writer of children’s books in India. Born to British parents,
he now lives with his adopted family near Mussoorie, India. I grew up
reading many of his stories (but still have many left to read) and
picked one of his short stories from the collection ‘The Room of Many
Colors – A Treasury of Stories for Children’.
The first story I
read was the title story of this collection – ‘The Room of Many Colors’.
Once I finished that one, I went on to read a few more from the book,
including ‘Faraway Places’, ‘The Cherry Tree’, ‘The Haunted Bicycle’,
‘Whistling in the Dark’. You can run across a gamut of emotions as you read
these stories and I have enjoyed each and everyone of the stories read so far in this collection. While difficult to pick one favorite so far, I am picking ‘The Cherry Tree’ to review today. Stories of resilience and hope always strike a chord in me; and having just read another children’s book called ‘The Last Tree’ (review coming soon), somehow this was the story I picked to review from this wonderful collection.

‘The Cherry Tree’ is the story about a boy, his grandfather, and their very own special cherry tree. Rakesh stays with his grandfather as there is no school close to the village where his parents farm their land. When he plants a cherry seed and starts looking forward to see it become a tree, we are taken along the journey as well, and what a sweet journey it is.