Literature Help: Belle Prater's Boy

By Students' Academy

“Belle Prater’s Boy” by Ruth White was first published in 1996. It is a young adult novel. The story revolves around twelve-year old Gypsy and her aunt, Belle Prater.

One morning, Aunt Belle suddenly disappears without leaving any trace. The main story begins after her disappearance. Although she is never physically present in the book, she is often mentioned by the other characters.

Woodrow happens to be Belle Prater’s son. He is Gypsy’s unusual cousin. One day, Woodrow comes to town. Gypsy immediately becomes friends with him to know more about the disappearance of his mother.

Literature Help: Belle Prater's Boy
Copyright
Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: Plot Overview
Chapter Three: Major Characters
Chapter Four: Complete Summary
Chapter Five: Critical Analysis

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raja Sharma
• Release date: Mar 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311286529

Students' Academy

Easy study guides for the students of English literature.

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Literature Help: Belle Prater's Boy

Copyright

Literature Help: Belle Prater's Boy

Students' Academy

Copyright@2016 Students' Academy

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Chapter One: Introduction

Belle Prater’s Boy by Ruth White was first published in 1996. It is a young adult novel. The story revolves around twelve-year old Gypsy and her aunt, Belle Prater.

One morning, Aunt Belle suddenly disappears without leaving any trace. The main story begins after her disappearance. Although she is never physically present in the book, she is often mentioned by the other characters.

Woodrow happens to be Belle Prater’s son. He is Gypsy’s unusual cousin. One day, Woodrow comes to town. Gypsy immediately becomes friends with him to know more about the disappearance of his mother.

The story is set in 1950s Western Virginia. The book won several prestigious awards, including a Boston Globe Hom Book Award in 1997. It was also named a Newbery Honour book in the year 1997.

Although the major characters in the book are children, the novel really touches on some very serious subjects.

The main theme that the author explores in this book is that generally the things are not always as they appear.

The novel tries to convey a very clear message to its readers that they should make it sure that they should get to know the people and the world around them without any prejudice. The author declares that it is much easier to see the truth that way.

In short it can be said that we should judge people after a great thought and knowing a lot about them, otherwise it will be just like judging a book by its cover.

Chapter Two: Plot Overview

Gypsy Arbutus Leemaster is the main character. Her aunt Belle happens to have recently disappeared. As the book opens, she is talking about her disappearance. She says that her aunt simply walked out of her home and never came back.

Woodrow is Gypsy’s cousin, Aunt Belle’s son. He happens to be a cross eyed boy. Owing to the disappearance of his mother, he comes to Coal Station to live next door to Gypsy, her mother, Love, and her stepfather, Porter. Woodrow is the same age as Gypsy.

Woodrow will live with their grandparents for some days because his own father is not able to take care of Woodrow in the absence of his mother.

Woodrow and Gypsy soon become good friends. They begin to spend most of their time together. They go to movies and spend time in tree house that belongs to Gypsy. Her father, Amos, had built that tree house for Gypsy before his death.

Woodrow happens to have brought up in poverty. He loves his new home with his grandparents in Coal Station.

He gets many new things there and he likes it very much. He wonders why his mother had ever left that beautiful place. Her grandmother, Granny, tells Gypsy that her mother left her house because she was envious of her sister.

It is revealed that Belle used to love Amos first, but Amos fell in love with Love when he saw her. Granny tells him that Gypsy is like her Aunt Belle. She plays piano like Aunt Belle but she looks like Love.

Gypsy’s mother had promised Amos before his death that she would never cut Gypsy’s beautiful and long hair. She has never allowed Gypsy to do anything to her hair.

Woodrow starts going to Sunday school with Gypsy. He meets some children from their school there. He does look different from the other children, but they like him because he tells them very funny