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”.