The Prince and the Pauper

This story is another adventure-filled book by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) that takes place in London. Its title is "The Prince and the Pauper".

Here is the summary of the story:

One day, a child named Tom was born into a poor family and became a pauper. On the same day, another child, Edward, was born into a rich family and became the Prince of Wales. During Tom's childhood, he read books about princes.

Many years later, he escaped from his family and ran off. He ended up at the prince's castle only to be treated badly by the guards. However, the prince allowed him to go in. The prince guided him to his room. He then ordered Tom to stay there while he went out of the castle.

Unfortunately, Tom's biological father, John, grabbed the prince. That created a mob trying to free him from John's hold. John hit one of the men trying to free Edward with a club. He later got word that he killed the man and now his family was in danger.

John’s family ran as fast as they can away from their home. Meanwhile, Tom was getting worried about Edward but did not leave the castle. He was mistaken as the Prince of Wales and was treated a lot better than in his former ghetto home.

However, they found out that he could not speak the languages that the real prince could speak. He was later assigned to take lessons. During his lessons, he also made declarations and new laws.

Days later, King Henry VIII died, so now Tom was promoted from prince to king! He made more declarations as the King of England. During the king's River Parade, however, the real king, Edward, declared that he was going to get his throne back.

There, Edward also made a friend with Miles Hendon. He soon became Edward's protector wherever he went. They were sleeping in a house when they found out that Edward had gone missing. When he went outside, one of his servants told him that a man came by who said that Miles sent him to get the boy and bring him back to Miles, which, of course, was a lie told by the man.

The next morning, Tom woke up and Lord Hertford came to him. He was then dressed by his servants. He was then led to the throne room, where Tom was going to conduct a speech. One subject was about the former king's debts. He soon found out that being a king wasn't what he was expecting.

A boy was then sent into the throne room. He was Tom's whipping boy, Humphrey Marlow. Whenever Tom fails a test, Humphrey gets whipped. Tom thought that was unfair and declared that Humphrey should not get whipped ever again.

Tom was scheduled to dine out in public on his fourth day of being a king to see if he was ready to rule the kingdom. When he looked out the window, he saw an angry mob outside. One of Tom's pages told him that the mob was following a man that was about to be executed. He then ordered that man to be sent to the castle.

When the criminal arrived, he remembered that the man saved his friend, Giles, from drowning. That criminal had been accused for poisoning. After listening to the story, Tom declared that there wasn't enough evidence to find out if the criminal really poisoned someone.

At Tom's dinner,

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

I chose this book to read, and it is written by one of the most famous authors of all time. The book is titled The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. It is filled with adventure and continues from the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Like all the other books, it is filled with adventures. 5/5!

I suggest you read on if you want to know his adventure.

At a house in the southern states, Huckleberry Finn is living his daily life of waking up, eating meals, doing chores, and spelling words. However, he is tired of all this.

One day, after his dad locks him in a cabin, he breaks out and finds a pig. He cuts it and blood rushes out. He uses this blood to trick everyone that he was murdered. He teams up with a runaway slave, Jim, and hides from the search party looking for him.

They went into a cave and live there for a few days, but after the water level rises four feet, they find a raft and sail up the Mississippi River to the Free States. They met a lot of people and tricked them into believing something else.

After weeks of sailing, they dock at the town of Cairo in Illinois. He lets Jim go at this town, but he comes back once in a while. They meet a duke and a king that Huck and Jim talked about earlier. The duke and the king put on a show and collect gold coins along the way.

Huck sneaks into a ship under the name George Jackson. He meets with a boy named Buck and has even more adventures. Buck explains about the long-lasting feud between his family, the Grangerfords, and a rival family, the Shepherdsons.

They meet William, a man who is deaf and mute, but Huck didn’t know what the hand signs that William was making meant.

After many more events, Jim, the runaway slave, was now a free man. Huck finds out that his dad and aunt died. However, this story doesn’t have a bad ending, like the previous deaths suggest.

Books

So far, I have only read 10 books out of a collection of around 30 books (even though they are not the only books I have read). Those 10 books were (the most recent at the top):

Journey to the Center of the Earth- Jules Verne
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow/Rip Van Winkle- Washington Irving
Peter Pan- J. M. Barrie
The Time Machine- H. G. Wells
Moby Dick- Herman Melville
The Call of the Wild- Jack London
Oliver Twist- Charles Dickens
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer- Mark Twain
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea- Jules Verne

I enjoyed every single book, except for two of them. It’s a 1 in 45 chance that you’ll guess the two.

Now for the summaries.

Journey to the Center of the Earth

In the mid-1800s, a professor named Otto Liedenbrock, brings his nephew, Alex, to Iceland to try and reach the center of the Earth. Hans Bjelke, their guide, goes with them as they embark on a spectacular journey that involves intense heat, rapid currents, and real-life dinosaur-era creatures. It ends when they are forced out by an eruption that lands them in Sicily, to the south of Italy. They return home, and Alex marries his love, Gretchen.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow/Rip Van Winkle

Ichabod Crane, a schoolmaster in Sleepy Hollow, tries to win the heart of his love, Katrina Van Tassel. But his rivals, Brom “Bones” and his gang, try to humiliate him and marry Katrina. One night after a party, he returns home, only to find the Headless Horseman, the legendary ghost of a Hessian soldier from the Revolutionary War, chasing him out of the thick forest! He tries to outrun him on his horse, Gunpowder. But Gunpowder’s saddle slips and he is not able to hold on to his horse. The Headless Horseman flings his ”head”, which is kept at the right of him, to Crane. It hit his own head and later, Ichabod Crane, dies. Brom Bones ends up marrying Katrina, and laughs whenever he hears the Crane story.

In a New York settlement, near the Catskill Mountains, Rip Van Winkle goes exploring and finds three people bowling. He drinks something beer-like, and falls asleep for 20 years. He wakes up, confused about the new atmosphere. He later finds out that the colonists have won independence against the British and formed a new country, the United States of America.

Peter Pan
The Darling family kids, Wendy, John, and Michael, find Peter Pan in their room as they go to Neverland, a place that only exists in imagination. They embark on many different adventures, but most of all, they fight the pirates, led by Captain Hook. Wendy, John, and Michael use clever tactics with the help of Peter to take down the pirates and return to the real world.

The Time Machine

A man claims to have made a time machine, but other men do not believe him. However, the Time Traveler travels to the future and discover that the human race had split into two groups, the Morlocks and the Eloi. At one point he loses his time machine and goes on a long search for it, looking in bushes, near trees, and in ancient buildings. He finds in inside a pedestal with a winged figure on it and returns to the present day.

Moby Dick

An ordinary man joins the crew of a whaling ship, the Pequod, and finds that the captain of the ship, Ahab had a grudge against a large white whale named Moby Dick because he lost a leg against him. His crew had took down many whales on their journey, but Moby Dick sank the ship. Many of the sailors drowned, but a few of them survived.

The Call of the Wild

Buck, a wolf-like dog from California, is taken to the freezing northern lands and becomes a sled dog. The dogs ran many miles and suffered from tiredness and hunger. Some of the dogs died. But not Buck. He had great endurance, and he even killed the strong leader, Spitz. Buck replaced him as leader. But after many miles, three dogs remained. Buck ran away from the pack because he had heard a wild wolf’s “call of the wild”. The native people are afraid to enter a specific area because of abnormal wolf tracks created by Buck’s spirit.

I will say my piece on the last 4 books on the list next time. However, I can tell you that all 10 books are great stories to read, and that you can picture each in your mind. That is why these books are enjoyable.

Sneak Preview: The next two books that I will read might be Alice in Wonderland, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. There will be updates about all the other books as I read them.