by Mark Twain (a.k.a. Samuel Clemens)
Recommended Age: 13+
When I was quite young, I thought The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was a great book. It had mischief, adventure, danger, a bit of romance, plenty of humor, and a vividly-drawn depiction of life along the mid-Mississippi in the mid-1800’s.
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Huck is sort of an orphan – sort of. He is sort of a wild boy who lives by his own wits, but after he and Tom Sawyer make their fortune together (see Tom’s book), he finds himself under the guardianship of a fussy, religious lady who wants to shape him up into a fussy, religious boy. Huck is having none of it, especially after his ne’er-do-well father turns up and threatens to ruin everything. So Huck runs away with a black slave named Jim, and the two of them escape down the Mississippi on a wooden raft.
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And then, sadly, Twain wrote himself into a corner, and the only way he could think to get out of it was to bring out a Tom-ex-machina and dash off an ending full of action and high-jinks. Oh, well. It was perfect for a while. Before you knock it, I dare you to write something as wonderful as the middle two-thirds of this novel.
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