Pather Panchali

In the small Bengal village of Nischindipur, Apu and his sister Durga grow up in genteel poverty, their father a priest and dreamer who is always about to make the family's fortune and never quite does. Between an ancient, half-mad aunt, a mother worn thin by worry, mango orchards raided in secret, and the far-off shriek of a train they run through the kash grass to see, childhood unfolds in all its small wonders and quiet griefs. The first novel in Bibhutibhushan's Apu trilogy, later filmed by Satyajit Ray, remains one of the tenderest portraits of growing up ever written.