The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (A Graphic Novel Audio): Illustrated Classics

Mark Twain wears well, I think. I first read Huck Finn in college, which I think is the appropriate place for its introduction -- not grade school, as seems to be the norm. You need to be able to apply historical context to the story, to grasp Twain's sense of irony and satire, as well as his political motivations. You also need patience, as there is dialect and regionalisms in this book. It was a first in that regard. I recently acquired a copy for my library, and I started reading it again while my toddler played outside on a sunny afternoon. It wasn't long before I was swept away into Huck Finn's world. Twain has a gift for telling a good story while doing a lot more at the same time. His famous introduction cautions against finding a motive, moral or plot in this story, but how can you help it?

Check. That's how I feel about this book -- I've read it now, so can cross it off the list.Not sure why I found this one hard going compared to Tom Sawyer. I had expected them to be about the same in terms of difficulty, but Huck Finn has so many plot twists -- might I even dare suggest it sags in the middle? Were huge coincidences more accepted in fiction back in the day, or were huge coincidences actually more likely in a smaller population? I'm talking about the coincidence of Huck meeting up with Jim, and the even bigger coincidence later of Huck turning up at Tom Sawyer's auntie and uncle's house. Then there's the coincidence of meeting up with a whole string of baddies. Were there really that many bad people around to be met?I don't know. All of this is background noise, to a story written by a man with progressive politics. Now I really don't understand all that fuss about the frequent use of 'nigger'. Better instead to turn our aggravation towards stories such as Dead Wood, in which the language is all wrong for the time period. Nothing wrong with 'fuck', but no one talked like that back then, so why insert it? If the word 'nigger' was the word for Huck Finn's time period, then we are obliged to use it. If I never read this as a kid I can see why, despite its always adorning our bookshelves -- the phonetically reproduced dialogue is quite tough to understand for a child of the antipodes. Then there's the different word usage. Not sure I would've known enough about American history or what 'vittles' meant. Honestly, I loved Little House On The Prairie but at no stage did I have an education on how white people entered the American West. Likewise, nothing was ever said at school about American slavery. So I guess it's no wonder I only just got around to reading books like this.

I guess this is the summer of reading classic books. People already know the story from all of the various movies and Wishbone episodes. So I won't dwell on the plot too much. There's intrigue and secret pacts and rafts and steamboats and scams. Huck always seems to find the craziest events on the Mississippi.

The best part of this is that it's written in various dialects. Huck's narrator voice is at least easy enough to understand, but lots of times I found myself reading things aloud to even figure out what some other character was saying. It really gives you a feel for the time period, more than any description would. I feel like I have a better understanding of the South now.

I can see why people don't want this to be read in present-day schools, or prefer to read Tom Sawyer's adventures instead. Everyone says the n-word ALL THE TIME. I get it that it was the culture, that it is a historical piece, but it would make reading aloud in class quite difficult. This book has an undercurrent of racism and morality that is definitely more thought-providing my though.

I read "Huckleberry Finn" in high school. In the intervening years, whenever I would hear that this book was being challenged or censored or banned from school districts, I would inevitably scoff. How could people be so closed-minded, I would think to myself, as to overlook the redeeming values of this text, one that has proven so accessible to students over the last century as a portrait of the evils of slavery, just because of the offensive nature of one historically-accurate word used within it.I've doubled in age since I first picked up the book, and just finished reading it again. And here's what I didn't remember: This book is harsh. Huck Finn isn't an abolitionist, just an opportunist who won't feel too bad if he accidentally gets taken for one. While he struggles to reconcile Jim's kindnesses towards him with everything he has been taught about slaves as property, and ultimately helps Jim to escape, he doesn't exactly do it for all the right reasons. And while the book is a satire of the time and place about which it was written, it is still the story of a black man filtered through a white person's perspective. Over and over, Huck has adventures while Jim is hiding in the swamp, or in costume in a wigwam, or locked up in a shed. If you were to tell the story from Jim's perspective, it would involve a lot of hiding and waiting. Our collective memory as a society is somewhat inaccurate; this is not the story of how Huck helps free Jim, but of how Jim helps free the mind and morality of Huck. Seeing the book now, I would question whether high schoolers have the necessary life experience and mentality to get this perspective out of the narrative. But for older readers, the book is worth a second look.The Barnes and Noble edition contains an introduction and notes by Robert G. O'Meally. The first half of the introduction offers insightful critical perspectives, but the second half veers too specifically into O'Meally's own personal academic interests, casting the novel as a precursor to the Blues tradition. The notes, also, can be irritating to educated readers, as they clearly presuppose younger readers with a less developed vocabulary and critical eye. While the edition is still an excellent buy with its attractive binding and affordable price, you might want to ignore the annotations unless you are one of the teenagers in the intended audience for them.

Huck Finn is about Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, and Jim. Huck Finn likes to lie, and so does Tom Saywer. Huckleberry Finn likes to lie because he needs to help himself, and Tom Sawyer likes to lie with drama. Huck Finn in one part dressed up as a girl, and there were lots of exciting parts. My favorite part was when Huckleberry Finn and his dad, Pap, were in his cabin across the Mississippi River, and they were up to a lot. And I have another favorite part, when Jim and Huckleberry found Paps cabin and Pap was dead. There was a King and a Duke, who were frauds, and we don't actually know if they were a King and a Duke because they were frauds. What I liked about the book: My Dad read this book before me. I like the word Huckleberry because I like the ice cream. It's a long book. The way my Dad read it to me was funny - the language, especially Jim's. What I didn't like about the book: I liked all of the parts.-by Naomi Fotenos on Feb 28, 2009 (age 6)

Not near as good a book as Tom Sawyer - but it was still good to revisit this book after all these years ...

Re-reading since high school. Good classic!

I liked this book a lot. The experience of encapsulating every chapter into a poem was a fun but challenging experience. Twain had a lot more than just a kids book in mind when he wrote this book. He was writing to all people who were caught up in the political question of the time: "Should one leave slavery alone, or do something about this issue?"

I however, did grow tired of Tom and felt like grabbing him by the lapels and screaming, "Grow up Kid!" But it was merely a book, and Tom Sawyers merely a fictional character, so I restrained myself.

This book is an astute answer to the political cross hairs of the nineteenth century.

I loved this book. It is exactly what I look for in a book, a great adventure and story. It moves at a good pace and doesn't get caught up in detail of a rock or the weather. The language and writing can be difficult at times to sit through but you get used to it and soon you don't even think about it. A great read

After a few months vivisecting Huck Finn using various types of literary theory in my tenth grade English class, I don't think there is much I can add. But I can say I read it when I was ten, and it was a fun adventure; I read it when I was fifteen, and it was rich in symbolism; and reading it as an adult it is a relevant delight. It grows with us and with our society.A must-have.

The boy nobody wants finds courage and destiny. An adventure.

Wonderful voice for the Finn character. Excellent setting and world building. The racism is a little hard to take.

"Huckleberry Finn" is set in Missouri in the 1830's and it is true to its time. The narrator is a 13 year old, semi-literate boy who refers to blacks by the N-word because he has never heard them called anything else. He's been brought up to see blacks as slaves, as property, as something less than human. He gets to know Jim on their flight to freedom (Jim escaping slavery and Huck escaping his drunken, abusive father), and is transformed. Huck realizes that Jim is just as human as he is, a loving father who misses his children, a warm, sensitive, generous, compassionate individual. Huck's epiphany arrives when he has to make a decision whether or not to rescue Jim when he is captured and held for return to slavery. In the culture he was born into, stealing a slave is the lowest of crimes and the perpetrator is condemned to eternal damnation.

I got the feeling that I was missing a lot reading this book in English, like it had a lot more going on in Russian that didn't translate well.

This is one of those classic novels that I truly enjoyed despite having to read it for school. Huck Finn is a fun, light-hearted character who embarks a grand adventure. There is lots of action. Twain's use of dialect for the characters puts a reader into the time, though it does demand more carefulk reading to catch all the nuances. Overall, I recommend this to ALL readers. Just a a good book.

matters appear hysterical on goodreads these days. Ripples of concern often appear daunting to the literate, cushioned by their e-devices and their caffienated trips to dusty book stores; why, the first appearence of crossed words often sounds like the goddamn apocalypse. Well, it can anyway. I find people are taking all of this way too seriously.

I had a rough day at work. It is again hot as hell outside and I just wanted to come home and listen to chamber music and read Gaddis until my wife comes home. Seldom are matters that simple. It is within these instances of discord that I think about Pnin. I love him and the maestro's creation depicting such. I situate the novel along with Mary and The Gift in my personal sweet cell of Nabokov, insulated well away from Lolita and Ada, perhaps drawing strength from Vladimir's book on Gogol, though certainly not his letters with Bunny Wilson. It is rare that I can think about Pnin washing dishes and not tear up. I suppose I'll survive this day as well.

This was a book club selection. I had only read excerpts of this book in high school and college, so I am glad I had the opportunity to read the whole book. Twain's writing in the dialect of the day enhances the enjoyment of this book.

Twain’s travel narrative is quite beautiful. The characterization of the river will strike anyone but especially those who grew up near water. It is also an excellent example of the social struggles present at the time.

Took me a while to chew through this one... its longer than I remembered from high school! I'm glad I read it again, however, and am looking forward to the next title in my classics challenge!

Hernieuwde kennismaking met Tom Sawyer. Monoloog in de ik-persoon, gebrekkige syntaxis, monotone ondertoonTom sleept HF mee naar een bende rovers en moordenaars, maar het is allemaal maar spel. Het kon me echt niet boeien

This book was fantastic in the beginning, with the adventures along the Mississippi, and the moral dilemmas between helping a slave gain his freedom (ironically deemed "immoral") vs turning him in. The second half of the book was honestly pretty bad though. The hijinx with the Duke and the King were pretty pointless. The plan with Tom and Huck to bust out Jim from captivity was downright stupid. I understand that was the intent, but it was cruel, and not enjoyable to read at all.

Fantastic somewhat comical adventures of boy who goes off with an escaped slave on a raft. Pokes fun at mankind. This was my second reading of it.

Might want to read it again sometime. Took me a while to get into it, but by the last third I was hooked.

Very funny, as well as very interesting.

Hard to think of a better book with a teenage main character - Treasure Island, perhaps ?

Dissected this one for English class. Sometimes, discussion takes all the charm out of a book. So do angry yet subtle attacks at Romanticism.

The way the language is portrayed, the stylized dialogues, and the underlying condemnation of slavery makes this Twain classic one that everyone should read. In some ways, Twain reminds me of Charles Dickens...Some scenes, particularly towards the end with Tom seem to stretch on and on, long after the humor is gone. Still this novel is an immovable object in American Lit. You just have to read it.

Wonderful language, wonderful dialog, full of my childhood.

Eh. It's certainly entertaining. It's undeniably a classic. I'm not sure if I had any major lessons learned from it. Not super high on my list of 'must read' titles.

I "reread" this book on audio, narrated by Elijah Wood.

I haven't read this since high school and I thought it would be fun to listen to, and it was. Elijah's voices were true to the story, and brought an additional level to the depth of this tale.

I'm happy to report that this book held up to my memory of it, and then surpassed it.

Such a hard book to review. Great storytelling, satire, America, funny, etc. The final saga of Jim escaping just makes me hate Tom Sawyer, though.