Sid Fleischman , the winner of the 1987 Newbery Medal for The Whipping Boy.
Author: Sid Fleischman
Reading Level
4th grade
Genre
- Adventure
- Comedy and Humor
- Fables, Folk Tales and Myths
I was very hesitant about reading this book, I had no interests in this book. Once I began to read this book it reminded me of the 1998 movie The man in the iron mask staring Leonardo Dicaprio. A spoiled prince with little to no regard for others. In the book it mentions the reason for the whipping boy. "Prince Brat knew that he had nothing to fear.He had never been spanked in his life. He was the prince! And it was forbidden to spank, thrash, cuff, smack, or whip a prince. A common boy was in the castle to be punished in his place"(Fleischman, 1986).
Personally this is not one of my favorite books, I would make this books available in my classroom. I also think this book would be good to do a group read or popcorn reading.
The fact that Jemmy was Prince Brat whipping boy annoyed me, I began to start thinking of Prince as the superior race (White's) and the whipping boy the subjected race(Blacks). I began to think of slavery and how bright African Americans were but white people gave blacks no rights so they would be submissive. In live today, I wouldn't do anything for the prince, I would lead him into the forest and leave is spoiled entitled behind right on the horse.
I was trying to think of why this book won award, I think because it had a clear message, detailed illustration and its a easy read. Read the book and watched the movie,this is a good way to compare and contrast. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn-fyBed1vc
But overall this was not my favorite book, it type of book that you don't want to read but after you read it.The only accomplishment is that fact I finished the book.
Text-to-Text- Onion John (The story of a friendship between a 12-year-old boy and an immigrant handyman, almost wrecked by the good intentions of the townspeople)
Text-to-world- 14th century Middle Ages
Text-to-Self- I could relate to Jemmy the whipping boy, I relate him to being slave according to my family history my ancestors where slaves.
The third book that I read was The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman and illustrated by Peter Sis. This book is a John Newberry Medal winning book. As I was first reading the book, I didn’t like too much. The language was hard to understand and the character Prince Horace, also known as Prince Brat was really getting on my nerves. The way the sentences were structures confused me because sometimes I didn’t know who was speaking. The text didn’t always say who said what. But as the story got deeper, I began to enjoy what I was reading. It was also an easy read too. I learned how to understand who was talking and what they were talking about. For example, I was reading one set of words within quotation marks and they ended, and then saw a new set of quotation marks with words in it, I learned to pretend as if it were someone else talking. And then you have lines like “What we got here”? That obviously is bad English, but I know what it means. It means “What do we have here”?
ReplyDeleteThe main characters in the story were Prince Horace and The Whipping Boy named Jemmy. Prince Horace was known as Prince Brat in the kingdom. He caused much mischief, such as tying men’s wigs on the backs of their chairs as a dinner was going on. The men’s hair ripped off and the prince thought it was funny. But he doesn’t get punished for his crimes. Instead, the whipping boy, or Jemmy, gets the punishment for the prince’s actions. Jemmy didn’t bawl during the whippings he received and that made the Prince Horace mad.
Prince Horace can be spoiled and, craving attention from his mother, he frequently misbehaves; as a prince, no one may raise a hand against him. Therefore, his family provides him with a whipping boy,Jemmy, an orphaned boy who will be punished in the prince's stead. Though he has learned to read, write and mathematics while living in the castle, Jemmy is beaten several times a day and longs for the freedom he had on the streets. When the prince decides to run away on a whim he demands that Jemmy act as his servant during his journey. While on the run, the boys are picked up by two notorious highwaymen, Hold-Your-Nose Billy and Cutwater, who hatch a scheme to ransom the prince. Jemmy talks them into believing that he is the prince, and sets into motion a plan of escape. The prince misunderstands Jemmy's intentions and betrays him. Even so, the boys escape. They come across a girl searching for her lost dancing bear and she directs them to the river where they find a kind man with a wagon full of potatoes. The boys help the man get his wagon from the mud, and in return the potato man gives the boys, the girl, and the bear a lift to the fair, but they are soon intercepted by the highwaymen. Still believing Jemmy is the prince, and believing it to be a crime worse than murder to beat the prince, they beat Horace instead.
DeleteI actually didn't like this book because I didn't relate to any parts of the book. I did start to think about slavery to relate it so something in mind, but I thought that was a little too intense. I didn't know that the book was created into a movie and when I read the reviews about the movie a lot of people enjoyed the movie better.
Then the prince couldn’t read or write because he said that other people could do it for him. But Jemmy would listen in without the teacher or the prince knowing it and Jemmy learned to read or write. A little later the prince said that if the whipping boy would scream while he was getting whipped, then he would send him back into the streets. Jemmy didn’t mind the threat because he would have the opportunity to go back to where he came from and catch rats. Jemmy didn’t mind catching rats and he would be away from Prince Horace.
ReplyDeleteLater in the story, the prince wanted to run away from the castle and he wanted to take the whipping boy with him. They left to go on their adventure and new characters arrived as a result. Two new characters introduced were Hold-Your-Nose Billy and Cutwater. These were bad men. Cutwater was thin as a pole and Billy was a big, smelly man. These two were responsible for finding the Prince Horace and Jemmy and treating them harshly. Another character introduced was a girl named Betsy; she had a dancing bear named Petunia. The came to the boys rescue when Cutwater and Hold-Your-Nose Billy was whipping the prince (thinking he was the whipping boy). The bad men thought the prince was the whipping boy because when Cutwater and Billy wanted a letter written to the king, the prince couldn’t do it, but the whipping boy could. So they thought the two boys were pulling a fast one on them. Another important character was Captain Harry Nips, the Hot-Potato Man. Jemmy helped him at one point get his carriage out of a tight situation. When they got him out of his small predicament, Capt. Harry Nips was kind enough to take them into his carriage. Later in the story, he would also help take Betsy and her dancing bear Petunia too. He also fed the boys because they were extremely hungry.
The biggest change in the prince’s behavior occurred when the two boys reached a town. Jemmy was looking for his old home was successful in finding it. The prince was humbled the most in the town. For instance, he was getting some milk with Jemmy because the captain gave the boys some money to get some. The lady who was giving him the milk said that the kingdom was going to be in trouble when Prince Brat becomes the king. He thought about it and realized that it was referencing to himself. Then the two bad guys caught up with the prince and the whipping boy, sending on the run. The Prince Horace said to Jemmy while they were in the dark sewers, “I wish I were you”. That was a big change in attitude toward his whipping boy.
ReplyDeleteThe two boys escape the situation, and there was a reward for the person who could find the whipping boy and return him to the castle. Horace said to Betsy and Capt. Harry Nips that he would use Jemmy to get them some money. Jemmy didn’t like the idea, but the prince was not going to let any harm come to him. The get to the castle and they get their reward and Prince Horace and Jemmy became friends in the end. The king put Jemmy under the protection of the prince.
I liked in the story how the prince was spoiled at first, but became humble and kind in the end. I also like when the prince was getting whipped by the two bad men, that the whipping boy wasn’t pleased with what he saw. Additionally, I liked how when dangerous situations came about, that Jemmy and Prince Horace put their differences aside and they worked together to get through the situation. I’ve played a game called “Call of Duty: World at War”. In that game, you can play on the internet with other people. I normally play a mini-game called “Nazi Zombies”. In the beginning of the mini-game, sometimes people will go around and kill all of the zombies and taking most of the points for themselves. This isn’t good because other players need points so that they can get new weapons and help out with opening doors in tough situations. As the game progresses and the place is swarming with zombies, it stops being about who gets the most points and it turns to all out survival. Points are no longer an issue and all of the players are watching other people’s backs. When players get attacked to the ground, it’s up to the other players to pick you up so you can continue to fight and help, or it’s up to the player to try to survive to the end of the round. If the player or players can survive to the end of the round, then the people who die come back to life. So this is a good story and I would recommend it for people to read.
I didn't like this book at all. And I can actually agree with April in saying that When they talked about whipping the boy and him wanting his freedom back and being a servant I thought about slavery. Jeremy was very excited when the Prince said that if he screamed while getting whipped that he would be sent back where he came from catching rodents. Even though they had their differences they worked through them to get through tough times.
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