Tom Sawyer

I adore Tom Sawyer. I always have.

I read the book for the first time probably in middle school, if not around sixth grade. I knew the story before then though. My brother played Tom Sawyer in a one-act play when he was in middle school and he told me the whole story. Usually stories are better when told by my brother but I remember not at all being disappointed when I read TS.

I feel like TS evokes a lot of personal memories. I wonder if it's that way for everyone or just me... I was always adventurous and a dreamer. It would have suited me just fine to run off and be a pirate for a couple of days. (I ran away once when I was very young but only made it to my fort in the back because I remembered I wasn't allowed to cross the street without an adult and I was not about to disobey a rule.)

I love Tom's character, to start. He's clever and adventuresome and that perfect balance of a good-bad boy that I have always loved. Ten year old me definitely had a crush on Tom. I also love that the book is largely for entertainment value. I like Twain's ability to spend pages talking about totally normal things, like children's make believe Robin Hood games.

I chose TS for my Lead Respondent project because of my previous admiration for this novel. I could really go on and on talking about it, but since I already spent the majority of class talking about it, I will shall some of my favorite quotes from TS, something I wish I had discussed more. (For some reason I sort of skimmed over the quotes section and realized it after I had already sat down. Whoops!)

“He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing – namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.” (Twain 20)

“Now he found out a new thing – namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.” (Twain 139)

“She would be sorry some day – maybe when it was too late. Ah, if he could only die temporarily!” (Twain 59)

“There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy’s life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.” (Twain 150)

I definitely felt the need to go off and have adventures and find treasure when I was little, so I resent this last quote is exclusive to boys. Although my mom jokes that I was raised by my older brother, who pretty much adored me the minute he met me and dubbed me "his baby" from then on. I was a total tomboy when I was younger, played with boy toys, watched boy cartoons and grew up to be able to kick any of my brother's friends' butts at several video games.

The latter is statement is rather sad, though. I feel like nowadays kids have their adventures through computers INSTEAD of living them. I appreciate that I was the bridge between the two, since computers came into popular/common use around middle school, so at least my elementary years were spent outside. My twelve year old nephew, however, has spent his entire childhood thus far staring at his glowing screen which I think is criminal. His birthday is in May... maybe I should buy him Tom Sawyer :)