School days...school days...those golden rule days!!!!

The month of June signals the start of a new academic year in most parts of India.  New academic year brings with it new friends, rivals, teachers and challenges (not necessarily in the same order!). As my nine year old steps into grade five, I can’t believe that he is already into middle school (or is it considered middle school from the sixth grade…I’m confused!)! With school work, home work/studies, assessment and grading system getting tougher with each passing year….it’s time  to pull up one’s socks and get serious……and mind you….it’s not just the child but also his or her parents who now need to be all the more involved in school work and studies. Plus there’s always growing up pangs with each phase of growing up throwing up new issues and quirks to handle and deal with……there’s never a moment in parenting, now…..is there?? J

Going to fifth grade also means transition into tween years and the way time flies …what do you know…within a year or two, he’ll be stepping into the dreaded adolescence! J Anyway…we always pick a book for the start of the new academic year and this time we’ve been reading two books  and both are connected through our current favourite author, Ruskin Bond…..of course! The first  “Whistling School boy and other stories of school life” written by Ruskin Bond which I have just featured in my previous post and another “The Puffin Book of classic school stories”, a compilation edited by Ruskin Bond. Isn’t it such a treat not only to be reading your favourite author but reading the favourite stories of your favourite author!?? 

This compilation comprises of excerpts from famous works from David Copperfield,   Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Jane Eyre that revolve around school adventures or misadventures of the protagonists, extracts from acclaimed school story classics like “Tom Brown’s School days” by Thomas Hughes and E.R.Braithwaite’s “To Sir with Love” to home grown school stories from R.K.Narayan’s immortal Swami and his friends and boarding school escapades of Rusty by Ruskin Bond. While most of the stories are set in the previous century, it’s amazing to see how these stories continue to appeal to the school goers today…a hundred years later. Still a work in progress in so far as our reading is concerned, these stories beautifully capture the various aspects of school life…friendships, resistance to authority, formation of secret clubs and societies, impressing fellow classmates and probably even teachers, rivalries and fights, examinations and competitions…..all those golden moments of care free school days! Though the language and narrative of some of the works may be a little challenging for a nine year old to read on his own, these time enduring school stories make for fantastic family story times…not just for a nine year old! Well….as Ruskin Bond mentions in his foreword that the purpose of this anthology is justified if any of these extracts make the reader pick up some of the classics from where they are taken…..these stories not only make you want to go back to reading those classics…but also in a way go back to school!! Have a great academic year ahead everyone!!