The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) (Oxford Mark Twain)
by Mark Twain, Albert E. Stone
published
December 5th 1996
(first published 1876)
by Oxford University Press, USA
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binding
Hardcover, 368 pages
characters
isbn
0195101367
(isbn13: 9780195101362)
description
In his introduction, E.L. Doctorow rightly points out that "ever since its publication in 1876, children have been able to read The Adventures of...more
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
By Mark Twain
Review By Dennis Lafferty
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is about a boy's life along the Mississippi River during the 1800s. The story mainly takes place in St Petersburg, Missouri. The main characters are Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, Joe Harper, Becky Thatcher, and Aunt Polly. Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn and Joe Harper are friends who dislike school and are always getting into trouble. Becky Thatcher is Tom Sawyer's complicated love interest who is always ge...more
By Mark Twain
Review By Dennis Lafferty
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is about a boy's life along the Mississippi River during the 1800s. The story mainly takes place in St Petersburg, Missouri. The main characters are Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, Joe Harper, Becky Thatcher, and Aunt Polly. Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn and Joe Harper are friends who dislike school and are always getting into trouble. Becky Thatcher is Tom Sawyer's complicated love interest who is always ge...more
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain is about a boy who is very adventurous and imaginative. He is always making up adventures with his friends Huckleberry Finn and Joe Harper. Tom is also very smart and reads a lot of adventurous books and always has his adventures planned just the way the books do. Huckleberry Finn is the same age as Tom, but he doesn't have anyone to live with. He lives in people's yards and pig pens. Everyone sees him as a bad kid and no one wants their kids to talk...more
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Read in January, 1985
My all-time favorite work of non-fiction. I usually read this every summer.
As a fourth grader I read this book and took it very seriously. It was my dream to build a raft and go adventuring. Actually I did build the raft, but there was not enough water in the creek.
My other great ambition was to come marching into my own funeral. I still think that would be fun.
When I read about Tom taking a licking for Becky Thatcher in school and sharing his cake with her in the cave, I thoug...more
As a fourth grader I read this book and took it very seriously. It was my dream to build a raft and go adventuring. Actually I did build the raft, but there was not enough water in the creek.
My other great ambition was to come marching into my own funeral. I still think that would be fun.
When I read about Tom taking a licking for Becky Thatcher in school and sharing his cake with her in the cave, I thoug...more
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Read in November, 2007
recommends it for:
everyone
When I was young I had read this book once. I read this book again recently and thought differently from the last time. The cover of book was interesting which was showing Tom Sawyer’s wit.(I couldn’t find the book in Good Reads) He gave his work to friends by using the wit and instead, he ate friend’s apple. As the title of the book says, ‘The adventure of Tom Sawyer’ is about the boy named Tom Sawyer’s adventure. Not only had that Tom Sawyer practiced and dreamed his own dreams wit...more
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Read in February, 2008
I started this book at the beginning, but the opening line of Huck Finn suggests that Tom Sawyer comes first, so I skipped HF for the moment and began with Tom instead. Obviously not a lot of thought was put into the order of the books.
I think I've read Tom Sawyer before, or I may just have seen a film or tv adaptation. Certainly some bits are familiar--the iconic fence whitewashing scene, and the young people getting lost in the caves. The book's written in a rollicking, friendly style tha...more
I think I've read Tom Sawyer before, or I may just have seen a film or tv adaptation. Certainly some bits are familiar--the iconic fence whitewashing scene, and the young people getting lost in the caves. The book's written in a rollicking, friendly style tha...more
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Read in March, 2008
recommended to Josh by:
Mrs. Turnbowrecommends it for: Anyone who's willing to be brought back childhood memories.
Ah, "Tom Sawyer". The story of a kid from St.
Petersburg, Missouri, who usually gets into nothing but
trouble. However, there are many other things we find out about him as well. He witnesses a murder, committed by Injun Joe, and doesn't tell, yet, for fear of being killed himself.
He also falls in love with Judge Thatcher's niece, and goes through some pretty rough times in his relationship with her. Also, he cons other kids to do his chores while he eats an apple.
This book...more
Petersburg, Missouri, who usually gets into nothing but
trouble. However, there are many other things we find out about him as well. He witnesses a murder, committed by Injun Joe, and doesn't tell, yet, for fear of being killed himself.
He also falls in love with Judge Thatcher's niece, and goes through some pretty rough times in his relationship with her. Also, he cons other kids to do his chores while he eats an apple.
This book...more
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I'm admittedly a fan of many of Mark Twain's works; so which to write up here at my social network? So I picked this one, because of me growing up three hours' south of Hannibal, Missouri, Twain's actual childhood hometown, which he paints a vivd picture of in this particular book, and which I visited numerous times as a child. And wow, where do you even begin with how great a writer Mark Twain was? Dark yet mainstream, bitter yet sunny, with a prose style that unbelievably still holds up well 1...more
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Read in March, 2008
Y'know, when reviewing a classic like this one, I feel a bit like I should be writing a more substantial essay. You know, something like how Tom fulfills the mythological role of the "Trickster" archetype, or analyzing the interpersonal dynamics between Aunt Polly and her adopted children, or something like that. Of course, I don't have that kind of time, not when I seem to be finishing another For Better or For Worse collection every few days or so and have next month's book cl...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
recommends it for:
students.
Poor Tom Sawyer! If Twain had stopped after writing you, I think your fate would've been much better. Unfortunately, he wrote Huck Finn which turned out to be such a superior book that you are ignored and tossed aside very often.
I remember reading this book in elementary school and being very impressed with the storyline and the writing. Reading it agian now makes me realize that it would've remained a great book had I never re-read it as an adult. There are too many inconsistencies. Th...more
I remember reading this book in elementary school and being very impressed with the storyline and the writing. Reading it agian now makes me realize that it would've remained a great book had I never re-read it as an adult. There are too many inconsistencies. Th...more
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i liked the book tom sawyer because ut was very interseting and was never boring. It had many stories that a guy such as me couild relate too. Every boy wanted to run away from home and be a pirate when they were younger or pretend to be a solider and fight in huge imaginary battles. They also found great value in simple things such as string, fishing hooks, marbles and other luittle pieces of junk of that manor just as Tom did in this novel.
The thing that makes this book so truely great, howe...more
The thing that makes this book so truely great, howe...more
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Read in May, 2008
I never had to read this one in high school. I've been on an "I should catch up on my classics" kick lately, so I picked this one off the shelf where it has been collecting dust. All in all it's just a fun read that makes you a wee bit nostalgic (not overwhelmingly so, just a wee bit) for a time that you have never experienced. In my humble opinion the story suffered from the fact that there was no ACTUAL story, or at least no line of plot that carried the action. The whole thing w...more
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Read in November, 2007
As a classic I've only so much room to judge--obviously it is good literature. However I do have my say on whether I like the book or not, and I do. It's hard not to like a story about a more or less well intentioned boy who is always looking for adventure and generally finding it. Amidst the adventures runs the thread of the theme of growing up. Tom's adventures usually get mixed up with some unforeseen circumstance which makes him do so. If the tread ran more thickly it might be about a boy wh...more
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Read in September, 1995
recommends it for:
Fans of the Great American Con.
There's not much that can be said about this book by a hack like me that would do it justice. Mark Twain was the first American writer to figure out how to turn the American vernacular into art, and he was the first historian to document how we talked. He also was a visionary who saw the problems of race and the problem racism would be in the future, and he tried to warn the future the only way he knew how: by writing about it then. He was gutsy and he was talented and he was hilarious, and this...more
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Read in July, 2008
As far as I can see there are three ways to interpret this book:
1) as a pure adventure story - or set of stories
2) as a piece of social commentary purely in terms of the narration found in the book - the asides etc.
3) overlaying the actual text with a series of extra meanings, "what the author meant here was...."
In terms of reading, 1 and 2 are easily achieved and would rank the book 3 or 4 out of 5.
I skim read the "Spark Notes" after finishing the novel. ...more
1) as a pure adventure story - or set of stories
2) as a piece of social commentary purely in terms of the narration found in the book - the asides etc.
3) overlaying the actual text with a series of extra meanings, "what the author meant here was...."
In terms of reading, 1 and 2 are easily achieved and would rank the book 3 or 4 out of 5.
I skim read the "Spark Notes" after finishing the novel. ...more
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Read in April, 2008
This is another great adventure classic story of ages.The Tom Sawyer,who is just a naughty boy whose parents died,live with aunt ,Polly ,and always his brillient brain to trick people and get advantages from it.For example, like this book's coverpage, one day Polly gave a task to Tom to paint the fance.What did he do? He tricked people by pretending that is an exciting and fantastically fun work! One day, Tom with a poor boy , huck ,went to graveyard and saw light comming between trees. There we...more
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Read in June, 2008
This book is lively and full of youthful shenanigans, Mark Twain is a witty and wonderful writer, I enjoyed it, and so on and so on—I have nothing new to add to the multitude of reviews out there. Or maybe I do, but I wouldn’t know because I haven’t read your review (no offense). What has stayed with me is the subject of slavery, which Twain, in this book, neither condones nor condemns—it’s just part of the picture, a reality of the time. But the topic of slavery is now in my mind and...more
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Read in September, 2008
recommended to Tail4 62 by:
my teacherrecommends it for: everyone
This book is about a mischievous boy named Tom Sawyer. One minute he's tricking people to whitewash a fence, and the next he's a pirate. He wiggles himself out of trouble only to find himself deeper in a rut.This book was confusing, but it followed one solid plot, and that's good. The book is referenced a lot because it is a fairly good book, and has clever wording.
I liked the book. It got me to understand old english a lot more. It also taught me the lesson I will live by for the rest ...more
I liked the book. It got me to understand old english a lot more. It also taught me the lesson I will live by for the rest ...more
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Read in June, 2008
Well here something that hasn’t been on any of my post for awhile its a book review, Well I decided to read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. The main character Tom sawyer is a mischievous boy who lives with his Aunt Polly in a small community. The book is basicly about all the little adventures Tom Sawyer has with his friends Huckleberry, Becky and Joe. Go figure. I found to the book to be cute in a way and would recommend it to anyone. After all it is considered an American classic...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in October, 2007
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a book about a little boy who bamboozle others into doing work for him. He is sneaky and conieving. Tom Sawyer is about 11 yrs. old, and risk anything. I like the tone of this book because it shows that no matter how many obstacles you may go through, you should still persever to become what you want to be. Sawyer, the little boy, is a life lessoner because he teaches you the fulfillment of life itself.
The authors main purpose is to show that even littl...more
The authors main purpose is to show that even littl...more
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Read in November, 2007
recommends it for:
fans of Mark Twain's writings
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is regarded as a classic, and rightfully so. There's a great sense of adventure and life in the characters, and the language really brings you into the atmosphere and the time period. One of the few problems I had was actually understanding what characters were saying sometimes, with the slang and old-country-style (for lack of a better word) colloquialism and whatnot; although the language gives it a certain appeal and authenticity, it could be hard to decipher at t...more
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