From Product Description:

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) is Mark Twain's most popular book, and its hero is a national icon, celebrated as a distinctively American figure both at home and abroad. Tom Sawyer's bold spirit, winsome smile, and inventive solutions to the problems of everyday life in fictional St Petersburg - whether getting his friends to whitewash a fence for him, or escaping the demands of his vigilant Aunt Polly - have won him the hearts of generations. The very success of Mark Twains's first novel has obscured its contradictions and the extent to which the author's response to contemporary cultural developments was a mixed one. Tom Sawyer is not only a deft comedy and a powerful celebration of childhood. It also reflects how Mark Twain was in the process of finding his distinctive voice, a voice with which he could express the conflicts he felt about coming of age in America. [Source: www.oup.co.uk]

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

Mark Twain sure knows how to write funny stories - and "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" is filled with them. My main criticism with the book is that there is no cohesive story. Instead there are several stories that are not connected to each other at all. The non-connected stories are funny, but there is no relation between them. It isn't until the book reaches the end where Twain begins to craft a cohesive storyline. It's definitely filled with some hilarious moments and great characters (Tom, Aunt Polly, and Huck), but as a whole I wouldn't classify this as a classic work of literature. For that you would have to read Twain's masterpiece "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."

I was planning a trip with my 5 children and we were excited to listen to the tapes. <br />It was a disaster. Some of the tapes were broken and others were taped over with pop music. <br />I could not wait to throw them away. <br />I will never buy used from Amazan again.

I never heard from this seller, despite emailing for a status update. I ended up going to a local B&N for the book, as my son needed it for summer reading. Amazon wrote to ask me for a review. I will be asking for a refund. I had forgotten because it was only a few bucks.

My son was required to read this book this summer and he enjoyed it very much. It's a classic and I would recommend it even if it were not a requirement. Enjoy!

Sure, this is a story about a boy. It is also a sharp delineation of the American character, a myth that includes episodes that harken back to Plato, Homer, the Old and New Testament, among other influences. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer presents a new kind of hero, a distinctly American hero, to world literature. From his low estate, due to his poverty, youth and incivility, Tom Sawyer surveys the grand vista of small town American life - and, by extension - America, and by his innocence and natural kindheartedness, redeems it from bigotry, intolerance, hypocrisy and all the ills that attend it. It is through Tom Sawyer's eyes that America is revealed as fresh and vital, even though in the novel he has no standing or prestige in the society. He eventually earns his prestige by a series of adventures that draws the town together and elicits it's highest potentialities. Tom Sawyer is the catalyst and the figure around which the Town realizes it's own highest ideals. <br /> <br />All this freight is carried by a novel that takes the form of a 'young adult's book,' the kind of book that would be a staple of elementary and junior high school cirricula for a hundred years. It is a testament to Twain's capability as a writer to have written one of the truly great American novels in the disguise of a children's book. In this, it imitates it's protagonist, who incorporates in his child form the entire cultural history of America up to that point. <br />