Plot: Tom is the town rascal in pre-Civil War Mississippi. His adventures focus on running away, evading the dangers of school, spending time with the son of the town drunk, removing boredom from church, and paying attention to the new blond girl. However, his activities eventually bring him to city-wide attention, particularly surrounding the events at a murder in a local graveyard and a picnic near a cave...
Genre: Historical Fiction
Reading Level: I recall reading it for class in Middle School, but classics are hard to rank.
Similar Titles: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Treasure Island, Jungle Book
Personal Thoughts: This was one of the few novels I enjoyed in the seventh grade. Tom is the eternal boy, fascinated with bugs, pirates, fighting, and blood. As a result he is believable, which means his over-the-top adventures are believable. The book tends to get a lot of controversy (although not as much as Huckleberry Finn) for its depiction of African-Americans, but it also reveals how things really were viewed back then. Sugar-coating or ignoring the ugliness of racism in pre-Civil War times does not change it. If anything, it limits modern capacities to prevent it.
As a side note, my attempt to make the blinds look like a whitewash fence failed miserably. Also, I forgot to take note of the bibliographic information from my book, but most libraries have a few versions floating around, so finding a good copy should not be difficult.
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