[.ca] The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (ISBN 0679880704)

What an Adventure:
The book starts out with Tom Sawyer, a mischievous boy, just trying to have fun. He plays hooky on a Friday and then has to work on Saturday because his Aunt Polly finds out. Tom doesn't want to work so he convinces other kids to take the privilege of doing his work for him. He even persuades the kids to give him something so they can work for him. As the book continues, Tom becomes interested in Becky Thatcher, the daughter of Judge Thatcher. Their relationship doesn't work out so Tom becomes friends with Huckleberry Finn. They decide to go to the graveyard one night to find a cure for warts, instead the witness the murder of Dr. Robinson by the Native American Injun Joe. Tom and Huck are so scared that they run away and exchange blood to make an oath that they will never tell anybody about the murder. The murderer Injun Joe blames the murder on Muff Potter, an unlucky drunk. Tom now feels guilty that Potter is arrested instead of the real killer, but doesn't do anything about it. Tom, Huck, and Joe, another friend, decide to run to an island and be pirates. They are just boys that want to try new adventures and have fun. However, when they are gone, all of their loved ones think they are dead so they have a funeral. The boys noticed how much their relatives missed them that they come to their funeral. The community is very happy to see them back, and all their friends think that they are heroes. When the murder trial comes around, Tom decides to testify about what he saw, and Injun Joe runs out of the courtroom. During the summer, Tom and Huck go looking for buried treasure and see Injun Joe hiding treasure in a house. Injun Joe sees Tom and Huck's shovels and decides not to bury the treasure there. Huck watches Injun Joe every night to try and get the treasure. He then over hears Injun Joe's plan to attack the Widow Douglas. Huck then runs for help to stop any violence. Tom becomes better friends with Betty, and they both go into a cave and get lost. They are lost for a couple of days and are out of food. They run into Injun Joe who is using the cave as a hideout. Tom finally finds a way out and Betty's dad, Judge Thatcher, locks the cave so Injun Joe starves to death. After about a week, Tom and Huck go back into the cave and get the treasure. Huck is adopted by the Widow Douglas who he saved earlier. The author kept me interested by keeping the plot going and going. Once you thought that Injun Joe was caught, he escaped. I like the story that the author tells. It is an adventure of an imaginative boy who is not afraid to do anything. I don't think this book is very unique because it ends with a happy ending. Tom's family is pretty normal for that time period. His family consists of a mischievous boy, a caring but discipline guardian, a mean half-brother, and a close to perfect cousin. The author tries to make this book as realistic as possible so the characters are believable. For example, Huckleberry Finn is a believable character because he has a drunk as a father and has a lot of freedom. I think that Injun Joe is a very memorable character because he is a murderer. The author made me care about the characters by putting them in bad situations. For example, I cared about Tom when he was stuck in the cave and couldn't get out. The theme in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer has to deal with Tom maturing throughout the book. In the beginning, Tom was an imaginative boy that made childish pranks and got him and others in trouble. However, by the end of the book Tom was putting other peoples concerns above his. For instance, Tom took the blame for the book that Becky ripped. He also testified in court for Injun Joe's trial. Tom changed from a little boy to a growing man in his maturity level. I think that the author did a good job of achieving this message by setting Tom up to change drastically.

Tommy can you hear me?:
This book begins while whitewashing a fence and tricking his friends to do it for him. While the story of THE REAL Tom is unraveling the story of love with Becky Thatcher is also. Among that the scary story of Injun Joe, a crook,liar,and a spooky man appears. This book is an extravagant, thrilling tale! This story concerns Tom Sawyer, who is a mischievous child and has an intense desire to enjoy life, and not to take things too seriously; which usually results in trouble following just two steps behind him. Throughout this book, Tom makes friends, breaks engagements, runs away, witnesses a murder, and ventures to find lost treasure-all in his hometown. Tom falls in love with Becky Thatcher, a new girl in town, and persuades her to get "engaged" to him. Their romance collapses when she learns that Tom has been engaged before-to a girl named Amy Lawrence. Shortly after being shunned by Becky, Tom accompanies Huckleberry Finn, the son of the town drunk, to the graveyard at night to try out a "cure" for warts. At the graveyard, they witness the murder of young Dr. Robinson by the Native American "half-breed" Injun Joe. You'll have to read it to find out what happens, but it's an amazing story and part of American culture. Also would recommend a great, great, great book called "THE CHILDREN'S CORNER" by McCrae-it's not a book for children but a collection of short stories that will knock your socks off. Really great reading. Also liked the book READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN!

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer:
Now that I have completed The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, I can see why it is such a renowned classic. It tells the story of Tom Sawyer, a carefree boy who looks for nothing more than to have fun in life. Mark Twain called it a "hymn" to boyhood, as it is an accurate depiction of the life every young boy desires. His adventures vary from the many runaways, to his cleverness with chores (the whitewashing of the fence) and the chilling witness of a murder. His many experiences, have aided his transition from an immature boy, to a well versed, developed young man. Many lessons can be learned from this classic tale. Through his actions Tom displays an enviable character who has no regard for rules and society. His lighthearted spirit, subconsciously questions, what are rules if they are not broken, and what is "society." The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, is truly a timeless masterpiece which will withstand the test of time, and provide excellent literature for generations to come.

For Boys and Girls Aged Eight to Ninety:
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.

A return to childhood.:
Although I have always enjoyed Mark Twain's work--his Diary of Adam and Eve is one of my favorites--I've never read Tom Sawyer. Recently I found a small book from the Barnes-Nobel collector's library and decided to read it. That particular issue is probably not the best to use, especially for a first introduction because it is badly edited and exhibits an inordinant number of spelling errors and misplaced words. Certainly for a volume one will use for quotations in any paper one writes a better copy, like the one above, would be more desireable. Despite his depression in later years, Mark Twain captures the sly sense of humor and dry wit that is a characteristic of American humorous writers: O'Henry and Will Rogers, among them. This is well illlustrated in Tom Sawyer, a novel about being a kid, not just in the 1880s but any time. Twain gets right into the heart and mind of childhood, it's myths, superstitions, trials and victories, even it's great philosophies: "He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it, namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain (p. 25)." (The latter a gloss on the whitewashing of Aunt Polly's fence.) Truly a Twain and truly a joy. For THOSE WRITING PAPERS: in English literature. How might Twain stack up against a modern humorist? What types of things make this a "dated" work? Why does that datedness appeal to many readers. How is Tom like modern children? Mark Twain was an adult when he wrote the book. Do you think that that fact makes the story less about a child and how he views the world and more about how an adult remembers being a child? Watch a film about Tom Sawyer. How has Hollywood reworked the story? Does seeing some of Tom's adventures help one enjoy them more? Or does getting "inside his head" through the book make it more enjoyable?