Ms. Smarty Pants Know It All

When I reread The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I wanted to slap Tom Sawyer for being frighteningly immature during life and death situations. But I knew he served a different purpose in that work than in his own story. In Finn, Huck was that nature boy hero struggling against the civilizing influence of society, of which Tom was a symbol.

In his own book, Tom is the magic of boyhood set up against the hypocrisy of adulthood.

The novel is laugh-out-loud funny and relatable to any child—boy or girl. Tom is full of imagination and mischievousness.

As with every reread so far, going through Tom Sawyer again brought back many details I did not remember ever existed.

I now understand why this title is sometimes banned. While I wouldn’t forbid any child to read this book, I think I would caution parents against leaving a young reader with it without any supervision.

Although, the issues that are controversial—church is boring, school is a punishment, virtuous members of society are scumbags, people are mean to outsiders and those who are different—children already know the truth of all this instinctively.

I don’t remember this book shaking my world as a child. These mini-stories are much more shocking now that I’ve had more socialization.

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