Book: The Prince and the Poor Boy

BOOK REVIEW

- Title: The Prince and the Poor Boy

- Author: Mark Twain

- Year of Publication: -First edition: 1978

-My edition: 1992

- Characters:

- The poor boy (Tom Canty): He is one of the two main characters. All his family is poor, and his father usually hits him. He is an intelligent boy, but he always wears rags. He lives in the poor part of the city.

- The Prince (Edward Tudor). He is the other main character. His father is Henry VIII, and he is very rich. He is the future king of England. He is compassionate and very similar to Tom Canty (they are like twins).

- Tom’s father: Tom Canty’s father. He is very aggressive with his son, he hits him a lot and he is always lying.

- Tom’s mother: She is Tom Canty’s mother. She is very friendly with her children, and she doesn’t like that her husband hits Tom.

- Tom’s sisters: There aren’t many things to say about them. They are two, and they believe the prince when he tells them he is the true prince.

- The King: He is Henry VIII. He is Edward Tudor’s father, the prince. He is a very strict king. So, a lot of people hate him.

-Miles Hendon: He is a knight, and he helps the prince in his adventure. He is very kind with the prince, but he doesn’t believe he is the prince until the end of the story.

-Synopsis of the story:

One day, two boys were born. They were called Tom Canty and Edward Tudor. Tom Canty was born in a poor family. However, Edward Tudor was born in a very rich family: the king family. He was designated to be the next England king.

Tom Canty’s father usually hit Tom. Tom always wore rags, and all his friends were also poor. One day, he visited king’s palace. He wanted to see The King, and he approached the gate. Then, a soldier saw and hit him, and all the people did the same. In that moment, the Prince saw what was happening and he invited Tom Canty to go into the Palace. He accepted. There, the Prince and Tom Canty changed their clothes, because Tom Canty wanted to look like a rich person. Then, the Prince went out of the room and a soldier saw him when he wore rags. And, as he and Tom Canty were very similar, the soldier thought it was Tom Canty, and he threw him out of palace.

Now, Tom Canty was like the Prince. But he missed his family, and a lot of people in palace thought he was the true prince, but he was mad (because he said he wasn’t the true prince, he didn’t know his father and his servants, he didn’t know French…). So, there were a lot of problems.

While that was happening, the true Prince went with Tom’s family. Tom’s father hit him, and the situation was uncomfortable. One day, he was lying to a person to get some money for his “family”, but he didn’t want to do it, so he told the truth. The good person got the thief and he could escape. After this, he met Miles Hendon, an ex-soldier who helped him to return to the palace. They had a lot of strange and exciting adventures.

The day of the crowning of the king (Henry the Eight had died some time ago), the true prince returned to the palace. And, as he and Tom Canty were kind of friends, they showed the true prince was Edward Tudor, and not Tom Canty.

Finally, Edward Tudor was crowned king, he did justice among the good and bad people and he named Tom Canty and Miles Hendon his assistants. They lived happily forever and ever.

My opinion

a) What did you like best/least? Why?

- The thing I liked best is when the prince and the poor boy change its characters and each one can live like the other. It’s very original.

- The thing I liked least is that the king dies and he can’t decide what happens with the future prince before he dies.

b) Was it funny? Why?

- Yes, I liked it a lot. It was very funny: a prince and a poor boy changing their personality. They lived a lot of interesting adventures, and a lot of curious things happened. I enjoyed reading this book.

c) Would you change anything in your tale? What?

- I don’t know very well if I would change something in my tale. Maybe I would change how the king decides the organization of the country.

Lexicon and Gramatical expresions

Word Family: Poor boy, Prince, King, Sword, England, Henry VIII, clothes, hit, thief, lie, gates, palace

Funny expressions:

-They are all the time saying rags and rich clothes.

-“The moved from place to place”.

-“Come in. But leave wrong-doing behind”.

Dialogue

1- What were you doing when the murderer went into your house?

- I was watching TV with my family.

2- What were you watching?

- We was watching The Simpsons, and, suddenly, we heard a noise.

3- What type of noise?

- It sounded like steps. Quiet steps.

4- Did you saw the murderer?

- Only my wife saw him. When we went outside the room, she lied on the floor and the murderer wasn't there.

5- Ok... ok. Is your wife right?

- More or less. Now, she is recovering in the hospital.

6- I hope she recovers soon. Thanks for your interview. Good bye!

My trip to Gerona

I was very nervous because some days later we were going to Gerona. I prepared my suitcase and on Sunday 6th of March I was waiting, in the secondary school, to start our excursion.

The bus left. We were about thirty five people. Twenty two of them were of 2ºA, my course. All was right. The journey was very long, but we could eat when the bus stopped. It stopped three or four times. In the bus we talked, played, listened to music, saw films… We were in our destiny at 19:00, more or less.

The camping was very big. It was very near the beach. We took our suitcases and we carried them to our bungalows. Our bungalows were the best (they were almost new, and they were bigger than the others). The master of the camping told us some things about what we were going to do, what we could do and what not… Later, we had some free time. We saw our bungalows: they had a bedroom with three beds, an attic with other two beds, a dining room with a sofa-bed and a little kitchen. There were some wardrobes where we put our clothes and a refrigerator, where we put some food like chocolate biscuits and drinks. We explored a bit the camping and at half past twelve we were in bed. However, we didn’t sleep until about half past one.

The next day we woke up soon, at seven o’clock. We went out of the bungalows and played ping pong. At nine o’clock we went to have breakfast. The breakfast wasn’t very good… Some minutes later, at ten o’clock, we met our monitors. They were young, about 20 years old. We divided in some groups, of 9 or 10 people each one. In my group, our monitors were Seán and Laura. They were Irish, and they didn’t understand Spanish, so we had to talk to them in English. That morning we played a lot of games, and we learned a lot of things about the body parts. We finished at one o’clock and we had a bit of free time. After that, we had lunch, and some minutes later we started to do some activities with our monitors. We finished them at 7 o’clock. At half past eight, we had dinner. Afterwards, we went to the disco, and at twelve o’clock, to sleep.

The next days were very similar, but with different activities: riding horses, exploring, dancing… I bought a t-shirt. Each day there were more people, so while some of them were having breakfast, lunch or dinner we had to wait to eat. Maybe, the food was the worst thing, but generally, all was great. We met the other monitors, because we sometimes mixed the groups.

The last day was special. We practised two choreographies. It was very funny! We learned a lot of dance steps. There were two groups: boys and girls. I think we danced better, but there are opinions for all people. That day, we came back after having lunch.

We came back a bit sad because we made friends there, but it was only the first two hours. During the journey we watched some films and we did the things that we had done when we were going to Gerona. While some of us were watching the films, others were talking, and we couldn’t listen to them very well, but it wasn’t very important. We stopped to have dinner, and when we were in San Javier, it was raining a lot! I was tired, but when I returned home I told a lot of things to my family. Finally, I went to sleep thinking that it had been a fantastic week.

My mates' fairytales

-Which is the tale you like more? Why?

I think the fairy tale I like more is Cinderella. I like it because the adaptation is very good, and the vocabulary is varied. But I think it is a little bit short.

-What do you think of the adaptation? Could some things be changed?

I think the adaptation is really good. Would I change something? I am not sure, each one likes a different thing. But for example, I think, they diverted a bit of the story because there is a lot of adaptation.