Our book-club book this month was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. We read it as part of the Alabama Reads campaign to encourage literacy and library usage in the state of Alabama. Some of the members had read it before and others had not. We all found ourselves loving the book. The storytelling is marvelous (I know for those of you already familiar you’re thinking “Duh!”) and the characters are endearing and who doesn’t love a bad-boy with a heart of gold. I’m even contemplating naming my 3rd child Sawyer.
It’s a book full of adventure, friendship, imagination, truth and lies and told in 3rd person from a child’s view of the world. My favorite quote comes from the scene in which Tom traded his way, through savvy manipulations, to get the free bible but didn’t know any scripture verses when asked to recite. The book concludes this vignette with the following: “Let us draw the curtain of charity over the rest of the scene.” Love it!
Huckleberry Finn being described as the “juvenile pariah of the Village”, “cordially hated and dreaded by all the mother of St. Petersburg and secretly admired by their children”, and “idle and lawless and vulgar and bad”. Whew, those are some harsh statements.
I hope all families read it. For children the language may seem awkward and of course, dated, but they’ll enjoy the hijinks of the kids and the adventure. Gotta go now and start Huckleberry Finn:)
Michelyn
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