The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain Library)
by Mark Twain
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Book Summary Information
Author: Mark TwainEditor: Paul Baender
Illustrator: True W. Williams
Foreword: John C. Gerber
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-04-30
ISBN: 0520235754
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: University of California Press
Book Reviews of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain Library)
Book Review: Fun, entertaining read that will make you smile
Summary: 5 Stars
I first read this book in high school and at the time, I found it boring and didn't like reading it, but then again I was forced to read it for English class. Anyone knows being forced to do something isn't as fun as willingly doing so yourself! LOL
But, years later I decided to re-read this book on a whim, and to my delight I found myself enjoying this book immensely. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer chronicles the day-to-day happenings of a young boy in Missouri and his mischievous and playful antics about town. Tom Sawyer is a rascal. He has no qualms about cutting school and romping in the forest to play pirate or tricking his peers into wanting to whitewash a fence (which I found totally hilarious!). Despite his reckless and selfish ways, he is a character that arouses feelings of sympathy and amusement.
I found myself sympathizing with his woes (of course, all which came about because of Tom Sawyer himself) and smiling at his antics and beliefs (his superstitious beliefs, for instance his belief that burying a dead cat in the graveyard at midnight will cure warts!).
Interestingly, I found that in reading this book I started recalling my *own* childhood and the games and activities I participated in as a little girl. This book doesn't have any great moral lesson to teach the reader, or some profound idea to enlighten us with. It's allure lies in its ability to compel the reader into looking back on one's own childhood with feelings of nostalgia and longing for the carefree and innocent days of childhood where anything is possible. This is a book of pure entertainment. Twain wrote a brief preface to the book and he stated that this was one of his reasons in writing this book: to hopefully create these kinds of memories in the reader, to have the reader wistfully think back on their childhood and remember the way they once were as children.
Anyways, the book was very easy reading, the language simple to understand and not flowery in its descriptions. The characters and locale leap from the pages and come alive. You are there with Tom Sawyer and are privy to life in a small town off the Mississippi, and it's all so vividly and simply told, that when you reach the very last page and finish, you wish the story could go on and you could get more glimpses into Tom Sawyer's world. In fact, the next book is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and although it's not a sequel to this book, it does continue with some familiar characters introduced in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
Summary of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain Library)
This is Mark Twain's first novel about Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, and it has become one of the world's best-loved books. It is a fond reminiscence of life in Hannibal, Missouri, an evocation of Mark Twain's own boyhood along the banks of the Mississippi during the 1840s. "Most of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred," he tells us. This is a book one never forgets: Tom whitewashing Aunt Polly's fence, Tom and Huck's dreadful oath, their cure for warts ("spunk water" and dead cats), Tom's puppy love for Becky Thatcher, the boys playing "pirate" on Jackson's Island.This Mark Twain Library text is the only edition since the first (1876) to be based directly on the author's manuscript and to include all of the "200 rattling pictures" Mark Twain commissioned from one of his favorite illustrators, True W. Williams.
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