TWP: "Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain

It's sort of a fitting day for me to write about "Tom Sawyer" as I believe I have caught Sawyer-itis. I got up with such great plans for the day, but no matter what I try to do, I start sort of drifting off during it. It's a lovely day--I tried to sit outside and started to fall asleep. I tried to read and started to fall asleep. I tried to apply for jobs and started to fall asleep. Slumber has it out for me today! I couldn't even watch tv and stay awake! Instead, I ended up taking a two hour nap while listening to the ghetto ice cream truck in my neighborhood circle the block for a half hour playing "La Cucaracha."

Anyways.

 The Dover Thrift Edition--Unabridged. 

I have to say that going into this book, I had a lot of hopes for it, but I didn't think that I would like it. I was dreading it in a way because of my experience with "Huck Finn." Instead of hating it, however, I love it to pieces! I think truly anyone can enjoy this book--children, adults, dogs, etc. Maybe not cats. I don't really get cats. I'd like to think cats would enjoy it.

It really took me back to my adventures as a kid--adventures most people have--and though I never encountered the same dangers that Tom did with his friends Huck and Joe, I could relate. I have a whole slew of stories of make believe time with friends, running away from home (which I did on multiple occasions ages 4-11), goofing off in school, and whatnot. And I found myself actually evaluating the book for children--would children find this interesting? What would be the challenges they encountered?--mostly because of the "Wishbone" Project hiding in the back of my mind. If the story was marketed to children, is it actually appropriate for children? I mean, I got so into it, I started to take notes.

"Tom Sawyer" is about a young boy named Tom who would rather go on adventures than sit in school or do chores at home, much to the chagrin of his Aunt Polly. Tom frequently sneaks out of the house at night to meet his friend Huck or his friend Joe to go to the graveyard or to go be pirates or Indians on a nearby island. After Tom and Huck witness a crime, the boys find themselves stuck holding a dark secret in and try to forget it by looking for buried treasure. 

Upsides (for all ages!): This book is packed with hijinks fun and a lot of both child- and adult-sized adventure and in that way I think it is relateable for all ages across the board. Adults can reminisce, children can remember last Thursday when they walked out of their neighborhood and decided to live on a playground in a stranger's yard half a mile away. That might be a true story. Twain is a master wordsmith and does really incredible things with dialect and with period and with superstition and with characterization. As an adult reader, you look at Tom and Becky's romance for instance (that's not a spoiler, it happens right from the start!) and you laugh because that's how childhood romance works. At the same time, you find yourself in Tom and/or Becky's shoes when you remember your own childhood romance. It is amazing how Twain sort of picks you up and plops you in any character's place immediately. You relate to Tom's need for adventure and to escape the stuffy schoolroom, but you also feel Aunt Polly's exasperation when she has another hijink to deal with.

Downsides: There are a few. If you like to have a serious over-arching plot line in the books you read, you may have to walk away from this book. It has an over-arching plot line, sort of, but not in a big way, in a really quiet way. In many ways, it's a series of vignettes about a boy and at some point, some of them start to connect. I think that's the way it goes when you read a narration of someone's life at a certain point. There is some personal growth for Tom in the story, but it's not in any shape or form a coming of age story. For younger children, the only challenges there could be in reading this is the use of the 'n' word. Now, I'm not one of those people who thinks we should ban "Huck Finn," "Tom Sawyer" and other books for use of this word, but if you're reading this book with your kid, you might have to have a conversation about the time period and how some words aren't really socially acceptable anymore. But you can always take that challenge and turn it into a lesson--there's a lot of difficult vocabulary that children could benefit from as well. And hell, Tom has read some books so many times that he has them memorized ("Robin Hood" for example), and that's always a great lesson for kids as well!

I sort of fail at downsides, don't I?

Overall Rating: 5/5: There's a lot more to enjoy about this book than to find offensive or disagreeable. I think it would be a great challenge for kids ages 10-13+ and of course adults of all ages. It's a classic American novel and incredibly representative of the time period--and therefore, I loved it. I highly recommend it!

Now, in agreement with my "Wishbone" Project, I shall now watch the two episodes dealing with "Tom Sawyer." Can I just say, yet again, how smart this show was? "Let's get kids interested in reading by having a Jack Russel Terrier tell the story." Brilliant. It totally sold me. And I could sing the theme song all day long. Here are the links to the videos, in case you didn't catch them in my last blog post about this:

Part 1/4: I think "Tom Sawyer" was a great choice for the first few episodes of the show. And Ellen is probably the coolest mom ever. She's super chill. Joe's all: "I wanna go do something cool!" And it just happens, he's been reading "Tom Sawyer." I can see how that would make people want to go adventuring. I love that the show just jumps into the action of "Tom Sawyer"--none of the first several chapters of set up, all they had to do was have Tom (aka Wishbone) hide from Aunt Polly and run away from home. So simple. And I love all the jokes about dogs. And everything. Just. Everything. I forgot how easy it is with this show to suspend all disbelief during the book part of the show and forget that Wishbone is a dog.

Part 2/4: Some of the dialogue in this part is straight from "Tom Sawyer"--exact words. I think they chose the best parts of the novel to cover--the ones with the most action, the ones that lead to the most personal growth. And the adventures of Joe, Sam, and David (all Biblical names...?) really nicely parallel it. I hadn't realized that the creators of "Wishbone" changed Injun' Joe's name to Crazy Joe. I didn't remember that when I was reading. And...TO BE CONTINUED! GASP!

Part 3/4: As I'm listening to the theme song for the 3rd part, my roommate says: "They should do a choir version of this. Nickelback could do it. It would be awesome." And he hates Nickelback. Ellen's so chill about her son being missing past dark! Maybe it's because my mom was really intense, but she would have shot me for doing something like that. My mom would also not allow me to go to a grave that someone was digging up for a second time, nor would she come with me. She'd be too afraid I'd get killed by a guy with a shovel.

Part 4/4: Can we just talk about how creepy that guy is? He seriously looks like a murderer or something...And let me just say it for the record: "Oh, Wanda!" Every time I see Wanda, I just want to say "Oh, Wanda," and shake my head a little. I love Huck Finn's attitude on living the respectable life; he's like: "Screw this shit. Being rich sucks."

Oh, Wishbone, how you bring back memories. Well, I hope you enjoyed this. I think some scenes were actually missing from part 3--but I haven't been able to find it anywhere else, which is a shame. Someday, hopefully, this show will fully come to dvd. In the meantime, we have to live with what we can find online.

I'm working on reading another "Wishbone" book "Ivanhoe" by Sir Walter Scott. When I picked it up, my mom scoffed at me a bit: "It's just another retelling of the Robin Hood story. Except they call him Ivanhoe." SO not true. Robin Hood is a character in "Ivanhoe," but not Ivanhoe himself. So I'll be pushing my way through that soon. I think this will take me a lot longer than "Tom Sawyer" due to the difference in English. I hope someone else will pick it up and read with me, though!

In the meantime, Happy Reading!
AJ