Book summary

Though TOM SAWYER, Twain's "other" coming-of-age tale, has much in common with HUCKLEBERRY FINN, including some of the characters, its hero is not the maverick iconoclast that Huck Finn is. As Twain traces the comic adventures of the inventive young Tom, he effectively and lovingly recreates the pastoral world of his own Hannibal, Missouri, childhood, including a portrait of his brother Henry (who died young in a shipboard explosion) as Tom's younger brother, Sid. Because Tom Sawyer's battles with prim conformity are always innocent and uncontroversial, the novel is not a ground-breaking masterpiece like HUCKEBERRY FINN. It is essentially a book for young readers--and a great one.

Media reviews

"Although my book is intended mainly for the entertainment of boys and girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account, for part of my plan has been to try to pleasantly remind adults of what they once were themselves, and of how they felt and thought and talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in."