Publication Date: April 1986
Reading Level: Lexile Measure 570L, Scholastic Guided Reading Level R
Interest Level: Grades 3 - 8; Age Range: 8 - 12 years
Major Awards: 1987 Newbery Medal Winner
Number of Pages: 96 pages
Approximate Word Count: 29,280 words -- The average reader will spend 1 hours and 57 minutes reading The Whipping Boy at 250 words per minute.*
Book Themes: Responsibility, Adventure, Boredom
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: latter half of the eighteenth century; in the countryside around a royal castle
Important Quote:
What was he looking for, a prince in fine velvets and a crown cocked on his head? Was it clothes that made a prince, Jemmy wondered, just as rags made a street boy?
First Line: On a night when the moon gazed down like an evil eye, the young prince appeared in Jemmy's chamber.
Point of View: Mostly Third Person
*Estimate from Reading Length