The NCERT Class 8 English book Honeydew is the main reader for CBSE Class 8 English — 8 chapters across 114 printed pages — and every official unit PDF is on this page. Find the chapter you were asked to read in the download table below and open NCERT’s own file straight from ncert.nic.in.
Holding the PDF is not the same as knowing the book, so this page also gives you a measured chapter-by-chapter breakdown: which prose lesson and which poem each chapter holds, how many questions it carries, and where the question load really sits.
The counts come from the textbook’s own pages, so you can decide where to spend revision time before you open a single file.
Download the NCERT Class 8 English Book Honeydew PDF
| Ch. | Chapter | Pages | Official PDF |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Notes for the Teacher | 23 | |
| 2 | Before you read | 12 | |
| 3 | Before you read | 14 | |
| 4 | Notes for the Teacher | 22 | |
| 5 | Before you read | 11 | |
| 6 | Before you read | 10 | |
| 7 | Before you read | 9 | |
| 8 | Notes for the Teacher | 13 |
These are NCERT’s own official PDFs, hosted on ncert.nic.in and free for every student. The links above point to the same files NCERT prints, so what you download is the published class 8 English textbook text, unit by unit.
If you want to check the format before downloading anything, the opening unit PDF (hehd101.pdf) holds The Best Christmas Present in the World and The Ant and the Cricket, and the closing unit PDF (hehd108.pdf) holds A Short Monsoon Diary and On the Grasshopper and Cricket — both official files on ncert.nic.in.
CBSE Class 8 English book PDF: chapters at a glance
- 8 chapters make up the book’s 114 printed pages, and every chapter has its own official NCERT PDF in the download table above.
- No numbered section headings and no hands-on activities — Honeydew is a literary reader, so the work is reading, vocabulary, writing and speaking, built around questions on the text.
- 64 questions were counted across the book’s chapters; the directory below shows each chapter’s share.
- Study pages for all 8 chapters are listed further down with their current status.
One comparison keeps the role of this Class 8 English textbook clear:
| Book | Role in Class 8 English | Covered on this page |
|---|---|---|
| Honeydew | Main textbook (reader) — all 8 chapters | Yes — every chapter, PDF and count below |
| It So Happened | NCERT’s separate supplementary reader for Class 8 | No — not covered on this page |
CBSE Class 8 English textbooks: what every Honeydew unit contains
The directory below is the book’s contents, measured: what each of the 8 chapters runs to in pages and questions, and how the unit is organised.
| Ch. | Chapter | Sections | Activities | Figures | Questions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Notes for the Teacher | — | — | — | 11 |
| 2 | Before you read | — | — | — | 13 |
| 3 | Before you read | — | — | — | 10 |
| 4 | Notes for the Teacher | — | — | — | 11 |
| 5 | Before you read | — | — | — | 3 |
| 6 | Before you read | — | — | — | 10 |
| 7 | Before you read | — | — | — | 4 |
| 8 | Notes for the Teacher | — | — | — | 2 |
What the columns count: a section would be one of NCERT’s numbered headings, and Honeydew prints none — its chapters are organised by rubric labels instead: Before you read, Comprehension Check, working with the text, working with language, speaking and writing and working with the poem.
An activity would be a hands-on experiment; there are none, because the exercises are all questions on the text. A question is an exercise item taken from the chapter — the number you are actually expected to answer.
Read the directory and two patterns show up. The question load is front-loaded: the first four chapters hold 45 of the book’s 64 questions. Page length tells a different story — Chapter 2 packs 13 questions into 12 pages, while Chapter 8 spreads 2 questions across 13 pages. A long chapter is not automatically a heavy chapter.
Chapter 1: The Best Christmas Present in the World, with the poem The Ant and the Cricket
This chapter opens in the mud and trenches of the First World War, where a letter found in an old desk reaches a modern narrator just before Christmas — and turns the story on the Christmas truce, when opposing troops stopped fighting.
The Ant and the Cricket that follows is a fable-style poem: the cricket sings through the warm months and faces winter with nothing, and the ant’s answer carries the poem’s moral — provide for the future while you can.
The unit runs 23 pages with 11 questions, one of the three heaviest chapters in the book.
Chapter 2: The Tsunami, with the poem Geography Lesson
A short opening passage on the tsunami of 2004 and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands leads into survival accounts — how people read the sea, acted in the wave’s path and came through. Then Geography Lesson, by Zulfikar Ghose, looks at the earth from a jet: the view from above redraws what the planet’s lines and colours mean.
The unit is 12 pages long but carries 13 questions — the heaviest exercise load in the book.
Chapter 3: Glimpses of the Past
Glimpses of the Past tells the history of India from 1757 to 1857 in nine captioned drawings, each panel a step from Company conquest to open revolt. The captions, in order, carry the whole argument of the chapter:
- The Martyrs
- The Company’s conquests (1757–1849)
- British Rule (1765–1836)
- Ram Mohan Roy (1772–1833)
- Oppression (1765–1835)
- Dissatisfaction (1835–56)
- The Sparks (1855–57)
- Revolt (1857)
- The Fight for Freedom (1857)
The chapter runs 14 pages with 10 questions.
Chapter 4: Bepin Choudhury’s Lapse of Memory, with the poem The Last Bargain
A middle-aged man cannot recall ever visiting Ranchi, yet a stranger insists they spent a holiday there together and knows details the man’s own memory cannot produce. The story turns on memory, identity and deception — why would anyone build a shared past that never happened?
The unit’s poem, The Last Bargain, asks what is worth accepting and what is worth refusing.
At 22 pages it is the longest unit in the book, with 11 questions.
Chapter 5: The Summit Within, with the poem The School Boy
The prose account is a mountaineer’s story of an inner climb: what a summit means when the mountain is inside you, and why the mission is not just to stand on top.
The School Boy, by William Blake, is a poem about a boy who would rather be outdoors than in school — the school boy’s longing is for the open morning, not the classroom.
Only 11 pages long and with just 3 questions, it is the lightest prose unit in the book.
Chapter 6: This is Jody’s Fawn
A boy named Jody insists on caring for the fawn of a doe that died saving his father’s life. The chapter is a study in gratitude and responsibility: keeping a wild creature is a promise, not a present, and the fawn’s fate depends on his family’s consent and his own daily work.
The unit runs 10 pages with 10 questions.
Chapter 7: A Visit to Cambridge
A travel essay built around a meeting with Stephen Hawking in Cambridge — a short conversation about disability, ability, and the limits people place on themselves. The idea of a visit becomes the idea of what one person’s example gives another.
At 9 pages with 4 questions, this is one of the book’s short units.
Chapter 8: A Short Monsoon Diary, with the poem On the Grasshopper and Cricket
The book closes with a diary kept in the hills of Mussoorie, where the monsoon fills the pages with mist, rain and the animals that come alive in the wet. The dated entries run from June 24 to August 12:
- June 24
- June 25
- June 27
- August 2
- August 3
- August 12
After the diary, On the Grasshopper and Cricket keeps the poetry of earth alive across the seasons — the grasshopper’s song in summer, the cricket’s in the frost.
The unit runs 13 pages but holds only 2 questions — the smallest unit, ideal for a light revision pass.
Chapter study pages for Honeydew
Study pages for the chapters are listed below with their current status. Open the ones that are ready, and use the PDF table above for the rest.
| Ch. | Chapter page |
|---|---|
| 1 | Notes for the Teacher (coming soon) |
| 2 | Before you read (coming soon) |
| 3 | Before you read (coming soon) |
| 4 | Notes for the Teacher (coming soon) |
| 5 | Before you read (coming soon) |
| 6 | Before you read (coming soon) |
| 7 | Before you read (coming soon) |
| 8 | Notes for the Teacher (coming soon) |
How to use the NCERT English book Class 8 Honeydew
- Read the unit’s prose once with the Before you read prompt in mind — those lines tell you what to watch for as you read.
- Answer the Comprehension Check items immediately, because they test recall of the lesson: names, sequence, what happened next.
- Work through working with the text for the inferential questions, then working with language for the vocabulary and grammar items.
- Treat the unit’s poem separately via working with the poem — poem questions ask for opinion and effect, so they read differently from the prose questions.
- Revise the question-heavy chapters first — Unit 1 (The Best Christmas Present in the World, 11 questions), Unit 2 (The Tsunami, 13) and Unit 4 (Bepin Choudhury’s Lapse of Memory, 11) — then take the short Units 7 (A Visit to Cambridge, 4 questions) and 8 (A Short Monsoon Diary, 2 questions) in a quick final pass.
One honest observation from the numbers: page length and question load do not line up. Unit 2 packs 13 questions into 12 pages, while Unit 8 spreads 2 questions across 13 pages. If you are revising under time pressure, follow the question count, not the page count.
Textbook contents and the examinable syllabus are not automatically identical — check the current official syllabus to confirm what carries weight this session.
Related resources for the Class 8 English book
This listing is maintained for the 2026-27 academic session using the NCERT textbook information available to us. NCERT remains the authority for confirming the latest edition.
Main reader: Honeydew is the book this page indexes — all 8 chapters, their PDFs and their question counts above.
Supplementary reader: NCERT also publishes a separate Class 8 English supplementary book, not covered on this page.
For the wider picture, browse all NCERT books on this site, or go straight to the Class 8 hub to see which other subjects are indexed. Each chapter’s own study page is linked in the chapter-pages list above.
Sources and data verification
- The chapter counts, question counts and unit contents above describe the NCERT Class 8 English textbook Honeydew, official edition on ncert.nic.in (unit PDFs hehd101–hehd108).
- This page covers Honeydew only — not the supplementary reader, and not other Class 8 subjects.
- The listing is maintained for the current academic session using the NCERT information available to us.
- NCERT settles textbooks, editions and PDFs; CBSE settles the curriculum, syllabus and examinations. Textbook contents and the examinable syllabus are not always identical, so check the current official syllabus.
Reference: NCERT Class 8 English textbook (Honeydew), official edition on ncert.nic.in.
Frequently asked questions about the Class 8 Honeydew book
How many chapters are in the NCERT Class 8 English book Honeydew?
Honeydew has 8 chapters, each unit pairing one prose lesson with one poem, across 114 printed pages. The download table above links every chapter to its official PDF and shows the questions it carries.
Is the Honeydew PDF on this page the official NCERT file?
Yes. Every unit link in the download table goes to ncert.nic.in, NCERT’s own official website, and the files are free to download. No third-party mirrors are used.
Which unit has The Best Christmas Present in the World, and where is the 1857 history?
The Best Christmas Present in the World opens the book in Unit 1. The 1757–1857 history is Unit 3, Glimpses of the Past, told through nine captioned drawings, and the monsoon diary closes the book in Unit 8.
Which units carry the most questions in Honeydew?
Unit 2, The Tsunami, has the most with 13 questions, while Units 1 and 4 have 11 each. Unit 8 has only 2, which makes it the lightest chapter for revision.
Where do I find answers to the Honeydew exercises?
The textbook does not print answers to its working-with-the-text questions — they are classroom exercises by design, so your teacher is the source for model answers. This page is an index of the book’s contents, not a solutions guide.