Will I love The Adventures of Tom Sawyer?

What makes a book perfect for reading aloud? I love a cast of colorful characters, unexpected twists, and great wit. 

The classic Mark Twain novel Adventures of Tom Sawyer has all of this and more! Protagonist Tom Sawyer is wily yet tender. He tricks his fellow classmates into whitewashing his fence for him, transforms the ill-gotten proceeds into a Bible, and gets classmate Becky to fall for him. 

The action and humor are so fun to read aloud. Twain’s writing kept me turning pages and wishing for just “one more chapter” until the whole book was done. Good thing the… show more.

I was 10 when I read Tom Sawyer. Which I loved but didn’t entirely get. To boy Mike, the midnight graveyard scene, featuring two thuggish bodysnatchers and a young unthuggish doctor, was mysterious, unmotivated. I didn’t know why bodysnatchers snatched bodies. But 19th-century readers, even children, did know: bodysnatchers stole cadavers for medical students to dissect. (Anatomy was in vogue, and medical schools lacked a supply of legal bodies.) But that’s not all.

A few chapters later, Twain presented boy Mike with another anatomical episode to puzzle over: Mr. Dobbins, Tom’s ill-tempered schoolmaster, discovers that some student has managed… show more.

A boy wrapped up in mischief resonates with me. Tom is a clever young man, and antics abound. He is one step in front of his peers. He is a young boy and deals with young boy issues until he is forced to deal with a grownup world.

I cherish the quirky wit the boy uses to navigate his world. This is a classic for a reason.

I suppose this book is a rather unusual choice of bildungsroman; but Mark Twain famously once said, ‘I have never let my schooling interfere with my education’, and Tom Sawyer certainly reflects that maxim. What an adventure!

The imagination and zest of youth are delightfully pitted against social contrivance with glorious hyperbole and tremendous empathy. Having had four boys of my own, I can honestly say that Mark Twain captured the spirit of boyhood in this book.