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Title: Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain ISBN: 0-439-09940-4 Publisher: Scholastic Pub. Date: 01 August, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $4.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.19 (231 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Comment: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain, is a very tricky book. It portrays the image of a child's novel, when in fact it is an equally great read for adults. Yes, it is a story of childhood, but it inspires adventure for the young, and revives it for the old. Something that everyone needs to do.
Murder. It's a serious thing no matter what age you are. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn both knew this when they witnessed the homicide of Dr. Robinson while they were attempting to rid themselves of warts at the town graveyard. Injun Joe committed the murder, but he took advantage of Muff Potter's drunkenness and Muff gets blamed for the crime. Tom and Huck decide to swear by an oath of blood that they will never tell a soul, but when it finally comes down to it, Tom breaks the oath in order to testify that Muff is innocent and that Injun Joe was the real culprit.
Unfortunately, Joe escapes from the courthouse in the nick of time and Tom and Huck begin to fear for their lives. In this fright, they run away for quite a long time, and the townsfolk start believing that they're dead. One night, Tom sneaks back to his house. As he's peaking through the window, and finds his Aunt Polly weeping over him with sorrow. He realizes that he should come back home, and he happens to return on the day of his funeral, surprising everyone. Now that he's become the envy of the town, his former love, Becky Thatcher, takes a liking to him again, and they get lost in a cave together. While the two children's families' search for them, Tom and Becky stumble across Injun Joe hiding out in the cave. With a lot of luck, they make it out of the cave as fast as they can, escaping Injun Joe once again. The town closes the cave up when they find out that Joe is stashing himself inside and he dies of starvation.
Mark Twain disguised this book as a simple story, but its crafty slang and emotionally stirring power tells me otherwise. Reading about a serious, horrific event such as murder, through the eyes of a young trouble-making boy, is a perspective that will bring out the child in everyone, no matter what age they are and no matter what they're expecting the book to be like.
Rating: 5
Summary: Boys will be boys!
Comment: This is the classic tale of a boy's life in St. Petersburg, Missouri (based on Mark Twain's [Samuel L. Clemens] home town of Hannibal, Missouri), on the banks of the Mississippi River (I believe the time frame is pre-Civil War). The original manuscript of "Tom Sawyer" was the first American novel to be submitted to a publisher in typewritten form. Tom is living in the house of his Aunt Polly with the irritating Sid, who turns him in for playing hooky from school. Tom's punishment is to whitewash a thirty-yard fence, nine feet high. With legendary skill and deviousness, he is able to get his friends to complete the onerous task! Later, he and his good friend Huck Finn go to a graveyard to swing a dead cat (to get rid of warts). They witness Injun Joe murder the town doctor and see Joe set up the evidence to appear that the drunken Muff Potter is the assailant. The boys hide out on Jackson's Island and the town believe them drowned. Of course, at their funeral they appear, falling right into the middle of the ceremony. At the trial of Muff Potter, Tom proves Potter innocent; but, Injun Joe escapes. At a town picnic, the boys (as well as Tom's girl Becky Thatcher) get lost in a cave, find Joe's treasure, are rescued, and become heroes. And, unfortunately, respectable. Tom and Huck represent typical boys, having their own adventures and dreams. It is sad to think that, in today's world of behavioral psychologists, counselors, and some teachers, both Tom and Huck would be considered abnormal and some physicians might even prescribe certain drugs to "calm them down." And, they are just being boys. The adventurous spirit of Tom and Huck should be celebrated, not repressed! Not enough adults read "Tom Sawyer" or "Huckleberry Finn."
Rating: 5
Summary: For Boys and Girls Aged Eight to Ninety
Comment: If you're reading this review and expect to find some new insight or original thought as it has to do with this great book, don't. Because there is no way I'm going to be able to add anything to the thousands of things already written about it. What I instead aim to do is to get you to read the thing, if in case you already haven't. (There, see, here I go imitating the darn thing, and an awful job of it too, no doubt.)
The first thing I would tell you is that the book is an "adventure," which, well, you've probably already figured out, that word being in the title and everything. The point is, the plot just rollicks along, with Tom and Huck witnessing a murder, running away from home, and finding a buried treasure. So if that's all you're interested in--a good plot--well, here you go. Okay, okay, it's maybe just a tiny little bit improbable, especially the treasure part, but again, it's an adventure and it'll keep you on the edge of your seat and don't let this stop you.
The next thing that's real good about this novel is that it almost perfectly captures boyhood: the wild swings between joy and despair; the bravado of confrontation; the excitement of sneaking out at night; the pretending to be cowboys and pirates; the fascination with bugs and dead cats; the monotony of school and church; and the constant, never-ending, daily conflict between doing the right thing and the wrong thing. All of this is familiar to anyone--boy or girl but particularly boy--who has had the happy experience of being a young human-being in America.
What's also great is the way the book captures time and place, giving us a rare glimpse into a rural America that existed a hundred and sixty years ago. A rural America in which an apple--or for that matter an apple CORE--was a real treat. Tom has two sets of clothes: the ones he wears every day of his life, and the "other" ones, those he wears on Sundays. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, wears shoes during the summer. Here is a description of the village "pariah," Huck Finn, the first time we meet him: "Huckleberry was always dressed in the cast-off clothes of full-grown men, and they were in perennial bloom and fluttering with rags. His hat was a vast ruin with a wide crescent lopped out of its brim; his coat, when he wore one, hung nearly to his heels . . . ; but one suspender supported his trousers; the seat of his trousers bagged low and contained nothing . . ." You get the idea. The wayward son of the town drunk was "idle," "lawless," "vulgar" and "bad." Naturally, all the boys looked up to him.
The book is also ridiculously funny, but I guess I'm not going to go into that. Look. There's nothing more for me to say. If you haven't read this book, then do it. Not because some teacher told you to, or because you've been told it's grand literature or some other such nonsense, or, God forbid, you think you might learn something. Hang it, you need to read this for no other reason than that the book is just plain old fun. Why, I've read it about ten times over the years and I still think it's fun. In fact, more so maybe than the first time I read it. So there. Nothing more, nothing less, and let's just leave it at that.
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Title: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Penguin Classics) by Mark Twain, Guy Cardwell, John Seelye ISBN: 0142437174 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: January, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.00 |
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Title: Treasure Island (Signet Classic) by Robert Louis Stevenson, New American Library Signet ISBN: 0451527046 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: December, 1998 List Price(USD): $3.95 |
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Title: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne ISBN: 0812550927 Publisher: Tor Classics Pub. Date: 15 October, 1995 List Price(USD): $3.99 |
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Title: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Dover Thrift Editions) by Mark Twain ISBN: 0486280616 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 26 May, 1994 List Price(USD): $2.00 |
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Title: The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss ISBN: 0440415942 Publisher: Yearling Books Pub. Date: 13 April, 1999 List Price(USD): $4.99 |
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