A twelve-year-old boy living on the streets of Chandigarh, India, stumbles across a secret garden full of sculptures and sees the possibility of another way of life as he bonds with the man who

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A twelve-year-old boy living on the streets of Chandigarh, India, stumbles across a secret garden full of sculptures and sees the possibility of another way of life as he bonds with the man who created them in this searingly beautiful novel based on a true story.

Twelve-year-old Ram is a street boy living behind a sign on a buildingâ€™s rooftop, barely scraping by, winning games of gilli for money, occasionally given morsels of food through the kindness of Mr. Singh, a professor and father of his friend Daya.

But his prowess at gilli is what gets him into big trouble. One day, when he wins against some schoolboys fair and square, the boys are infuriated. As they chase Ram across town, he flings his small sack of money over a factory gate where no one can get it, and disappears into the alleyways. But someone does get the money, Ram discovers when he sneaks back later on to rescue what is hisâ€”a strange-ish man on a bike who also seems to be collectingâ€¦rocks? Ram follows the man into the jungle, where he finds something unlike anything heâ€™s seenâ€”statues, hundreds of statuesâ€¦no, thousands of them! Gods and goddesses and buildings, all at half scale. What is this place? And the rock collecting man, Nek, has built them all! When Nek discovers that Ram has followed him, he has no choice but to let the boy stay and earn back the money Nek has spent. How else can he keep him quiet? For his creations lie on land that isnâ€™t technically his to build on.

As Ram and Nek hesitantly become friends, Ram learns the true nature of this hidden village in the jungle, as well as the stories of Shiva and Lord Rama, stories of gods and goddesses that in strange ways seem to parallel Ramâ€™sâ€¦and Nekâ€™s.

Based on the true story of one of Indiaâ€™s most beloved artists and modern day folk heroes, Nek Chand was a real manâ€”a man displaced from his home in the midst of war and conflict; a man who missed his home so terribly he illegally reconstructed his entire village in miniature out of found objects and rock, recreating mosaic statues and sculptures spanning acres of jungle. Though Ram is a fictionalized character, Nekâ€™s artwork is real. Intertwined with mythology and the sociopolitics of India, this is an exquisitely wrought, unexpected, and singular tale about the connection of community and how art can help make us human.

Country	USA
Author	Jennifer Bradbury
Binding	Kindle Edition
EISBN	9781442468290
Format	Kindle eBook
Label	Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books
Manufacturer	Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books
NumberOfPages	288
PublicationDate	2017-06-06
Publisher	Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books
ReleaseDate	2017-06-06
Studio	Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books

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