Book Report- Oral speech format
(by Rebecca, Mr. Doi class, 2/26/09)
Book Title: A Little Princess
What do you think of when you hear the word “princess?” Certainly not a poor little girl, right? Well, in the novel A Little Princess, the so-called “princess” is just that: a poor little girl. ...
The author, Frances Hodgson Burnett was born in England in 1849. She immigrated to America when she was sixteen. Three years later, her first stories got published. Frances has written over 40 novels, including Little Lord Fauntleroy and The Secret Garden.
A Little Princess starts off when Sara Crewe, an English girl from India, heads off to boarding school in London. This is also the inciting moment. Sara’s father is rich, so Sara gets the largest room, and many other fancy luxuries. Sara becomes friends with many of the other girls, and best friends with a girl named Ermengarde. She even befriends one of the servant girls, a maid named Becky.
For a couple years, Sara lives a cheerful life at the boarding school. However, her father dies a couple of years later, on Sara’s birthday. He had invested all his money in a diamond mine with a childhood friend, but nothing had turned up in that mine. Mr. Crewe died from a combination of jungle fever and stress from the business troubles. Now, Sara is completely penniless.
The head of the school, Miss Minchin, insists that since Sara can’t afford her luxurious room anymore, she must move into the attic with Becky and work as a servant girl to pay for her stay at the school. Sara lives a miserable life as a servant girl, but she remains optimistic. She stays very good friends with Ermengarde, and Becky.
One day, an Englishman from India moves in next to the school. A couple weeks later, when Becky and Sara go to their attic to sleep, they find it completely remodeled. Their dingy room now has a cozy fire, warm food, and several blankets. They don’t know who did this and Sara claims it’s “magic.”
Weeks later, Sara finds a monkey in her room. After asking around, she discovers it belongs to the Englishman next door. She goes to his house to return the monkey. The climax happens when Sara discovers this Englishman was her father’s business partner and childhood friend. There ended up being a multitude of diamonds and he’s been searching for her to tell her that. This means that Sara’s rich again. She also learns that the Englishman had sent people to make her attic more beautiful.
In the falling action, Sara decides to live with the Englishman, Mr. Carrisford. He turns out to be a really nice gentleman and gives Sara almost everything she wants.
The theme of this book is that anything is possible with imagination and you can get through any situation with just a little creative thinking. Even when Sara became poor and had to live in the attic, she pretended she was a princess living in a castle and that helped her get through the tough times. She liked to use imagination to tell stories and pretend life was better.
This book is called A Little Princess, because Sara is called a princess by almost of the other girls at her school. This is due to the fact that Sara liked to pretend she was a princess and did kind things for everyone.
Even though this book was written over a century ago, few have ever matched it for its ingenuity and cunningness.
