Mark Twain - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Audio book)

Title: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Author: Mark Twain
Narrator: John Greenman
Publisher: www. librivox.org
First Published: 1876
Running time: 6 hrs 12 min 25 sec
Format: Audio Book
Rating: 6/10

Synopsis:
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (published 1876) is a very well-known and popular story concerning American youth. Mark Twain’s lively tale of the scrapes and adventures of boyhood is set in St. Petersburg, Missouri, where Tom Sawyer and his friend Huckleberry Finn have the kinds of adventures many boys can imagine: racing bugs during class, impressing girls, especially Becky Thatcher, with fights and stunts in the schoolyard, getting lost in a cave, and playing pirates on the Mississippi River.

One of the most famous incidents in the book describes how Tom persuades his friends to do a boring, hateful chore for him: whitewashing (i.e., painting) a fence.

This was the first novel to be written on a typewriter.

Review:
Although I know this was written to be primarily aimed at children, it does seem rather dated and there are words used that kids of "that age" today wouldn't understand and many of Tom's antics would seem pretty tame (as would his collection of "treasures" such as marbles, a dead rat to swing on a string, and a brass knob - in this age of commercialism, children would marvel that anyone of any age would think of these things as worth having). This also seems a lot more childish than The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn did, although perhaps that's to be expected as this was written first and the hero is younger here.

Overall, I think I liked this slightly better than The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn but there's not much in it. It's was entertaining enough, but not one I think I'll pick up in paperback.