The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleishman

The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman ISBN# 0-688-06216-4

There once was a fictitious kingdom where there was a very bad Prince nicknamed Prince Brat. Prince Brat was always pulling stunts, but when he does, he does not have to suffer the consequences. The consequences are given to the whipping boy, Jemmy, an orphan from the town. Since the consequences are a whipping, Jemmy is called The Whipping Boy. And he is whipped a lot.

One day the Prince Brat gets bored, and wants to run away, but he needs The Whipping Boy ads a manservant. So, off they go on a wild adventure and immediately run into Hold-Your-Nose-Billy and Cutwater. They keep encountering these two for the remainder of the book, but they also run into a bear and his girl keeper as well as a potato man.

This book is fast paced and a lot of fun. You are going to have suspend belief because most of the events in this book couldn’t happen, but they are fun just the same. This is a great read for tweens because there is a nice combination of the comic and eventually compassion between the characters.