How would you like to live in a time where you get whipped for things you didn't do? Well, that's exactly what happens in the book, which this report is about. The Whipping Boy is a fiction book by Sid Fleischman, Winner of the 1987 Newbery Medal. Sid Fleischman was born in Brooklyn, New York, on March 16, 1920, and grew up in San Diego, California. He wrote more than 60 books for adults as well as for children. The Whipping Boy is one of them, which has been made into a movie.
The Whipping Boy is an 18th century European adventure story that is funnier than any book I have ever come across. However, underneath this funny story is a sad story of an innocent child taken from the streets to suffer unjustly in a castle, in the United Kingdom. In this hilarious book, Prince Horace, also known as Prince Brat, heir to a royal kingdom, is a complete brat! He was very troublesome. Because the prince is never supposed to be disciplined or spanked in the kingdom, he must have a whipping boy to take his beatings.Therefore, his father keeps Jemmy, an orphaned boy and ex-rat catcher from the streets, who became Prince Brat's whipping boy.
He is brought in and whipped in place of the prince every time the prince gets in trouble. Because of this unjust and bad treatment, Jemmy tries to focus on running away from the castle and return to the streets where he was raised. Sometimes, things don't always turn out the way we plan them. Jemmy is about to be trapped again in Prince Brat's own dream of running away.As Prince Brat becomes bored with his royal life, he decided to do something new and exciting.
An adventure awaits the two and things are about to get interesting. One night, Prince Brat arrives at Jemmy's room and told the whipping boy to follow him as he runs away. Jemmy immediately sees this as his chance to escape from the castle, and they left. Prince Brat and Jemmy, however, immediately ran into two highwaymen, Hold-Your-Nose Billy and Cutwater.
The bandits kidnapped the boys hoping to collect a ransom for the prince.Jemmy sees a chance to save the prince. He convinces the bandits that he is the prince, and he tries to get them to send his servant (who is really the prince) back with a message. The prince, however, refuses to pretend that he is a servant and the plan failed.
Jemmy was so frustrated, he makes a break into the woods and escapes the bandits. Prince Brat then follows Jemmy. The bandits chase the boys through the forest until a bear appears to chase the highwaymen away. Jemmy and the Prince ended up in the city. In the city, the bandits caught up with the boys.They fled into the sewers where Jemmy once was a rat-catcher.
The highwaymen chased them through the tunnels. Jemmy convinces the bandits to head down a tunnel filled with rats, and once the bandits are attacked by the rats, they fled the city. The two boys decided to put their differences aside and work as a team. They became friends throughout their adventure. They came out of the sewers to find that the king is searching for the prince and is offering a reward for the whipping boy who may have kidnapped the prince.The prince tells Jemmy that he will protect him, and in an act of friendship and trust, Jemmy decides to return to the castle, not as the prince's whipping boy, but as his friend.
I would recommend The Whipping Boy for youngsters of all ages, not just because it is a story of adventure and suspense, it is also full of humor and real life lessons to learn. It is a story about changing one's attitude and friendship. The prince never learned anything because he really didn't think there was a need to. On the good side, Jemmy gets to learn all the lessons in reading, writing and mathematics that the prince refuses to do.
So when the prince and Jemmy ran away, it was clear who saved the day. Jemmy was the one who knew how to read and write. Jemmy was the one who was going to sign any document. He had never given a thought to Jemmy's terrible situation in the castle or to his own bad behavior. When they returned to the castle, he was even shocked to find out that the entire kingdom calls him Prince Brat.
Prince Brat's helplessness to do anything for himself, or for anyone else gets him to want to change his life around for the better.
