I can still vividly remember my mom reading it to my brother and I. I loved it. Rereading it to my daughters, it seemed to drag a bit in parts in a way I didn't remember, but still a good read that at times is sparkling. Everyone needs to read it, as it's an American lit touchstone.

The book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, is a timeless classic that provides a message to the reader through a huge adventure that Huckleberry Finn encounters. This is actually a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer which only helps explain the beginning of the book a little more clearly. Everything else is a new journey that Huckleberry Finn takes. There are the same characters as in the first book as there are in this book, including Huck's best friend Tom Sawyer. When I first began to read it, I got a little confused about what was going on and having a little trouble starting it, because it had been awhile since I finished Tom Sawyer. However, it didn't take long for Mark Twain to start up an adventure between Huck and Tom. They decide to start a gang where they would rob and murder people. This idea eventually dies off, but I personally thought it humorous that a couple of boys in their teens decide suddenly to begin breaking the law. It really didn't seem that they had a chance from the start to do such a thing. After this, the main story really begins to unwind.
You see, Huck's dad is a bit of a drunk and one who doesn't see the importance of work. They also only meet every once in a while, and Huck is doing just fine living with a lady by the name of Widow Douglas. Every time his dad does come, Huck gets scared of what he might do to him. I find that kind of sad knowing that a son is scared of his own father. Well, it turns out that one day his dad comes wanting to take money Huck had found in the previous book. Huck's father decides that since the judge won't give him the money, he'll prove that he's really the boss of Huck by taking him to live with him in very thick woodlands in a small hut. Huckleberry succeeds to run away one night through a very elaborate scheme and finds himself on an island in the Mississippi River. On that island he meets a runaway slave named Jim. Huck had built a raft too, and both of them decide to run away together. Huckleberry Finn realized he was transporting a runaway illegally. They can only travel at night and there's always the risk that someone will catch them. Not to mention a floating house with a mysterious dead man inside, Huck Finn dressing up as a girl, dangerous currents in the river, and even sneaking on shore into people's houses for supplies and information on what was going on. Each one of these events was both suspenseful and exciting at the same time.
The two were also not on the raft alone the entire time. As time passed, they are joined by two men who thought of themselves as a king and duke. The only thing they're worthy of ruling is a good way to trick people out of their money. Now Jim and Huck are involved in all of their business plans to put on shows and make money. The two men's greed towards money is so great, that they put the lives of all four passengers on the raft in danger by lying to a family who has just experienced a tragic death. They pretend to be the people who are issued the money in the dead man's will. Jim and Huck are really beginning to dislike these men and know how bad they are. Huck then devises another devious plan that has such a high risk to steel back the money and turn in the two liars.
Huck also manages to get himself tangled into an even bigger mess after Jim is finally captured. He's under a disguised name, but under a name and with a family he's closer to than he thinks. The last plan he invests his time into is setting Jim free, which is the most dangerous thing he's ever done. He meets up with Tom Sawyer, and they have one last great undertaking that will keep you flipping the pages of the book. I thoroughly enjoyed this exciting novel and it really gave a message on slavery. I think there's a little something in this book for every reader who likes a good adventure that will keep you asking for more. This book is what everyone says it to be. GREAT!

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by Mark Twain, originally published in 1884. It is the sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Ernest Hemingway (and many others) called it the greatest American novel ever. Huck Finn picks up right where Tom Sawyer left off - Huck's abusive father appears to lay claim to Huck's fortune, so Huck fakes his own death and goes down the Mississippi River with Jim, the escaped slave.

Much like Tom Sawyer, there's not a lot of plot going on here most of the time, and that's okay, because Twain's writing is extremely entertaining. Twain has a good old time mocking social conventions, and the novel is gripping almost all the way through. Hemingway was right: the end of Huck Finn is poor. After Jim is abducted and Tom Sawyer reappears, things just get silly, not to mention highly convenient (And Tom Sawyer here is just as immature as he ever was, reinforcing that no real maturation occurred in Tom Sawyer, and that that book really isn't a coming-of-age story in the truest sense).

Twain has made Huck the narrator. On the whole, this works, although it gets tiresome to read Huck's dialect sometimes. Twain-as-narrator is definitely missed here. Nobody could write a clever sentence like Twain, and most of that is lost here, although occasionally Huck will turn one (and by doing so break character, but that's the price you pay).

Huck Finn has been exceedingly controversial because of the extensive use of the n-word. So is the novel racist? Certainly the characters have the racism of the day ingrained in them - in that sense, it is racist. But more important to most people is whether Twain was racist; that is, whether he put his own personal racism in the book. That is harder to determine, especially since Twain has made Huck the narrator. Perhaps the fairest thing to say is that Twain was genuinely criticizing racism, but the way in which he portrayed Jim and the other characters contains some residual racism of its own.

So is Huck Finn America's greatest novel? Well, maybe not. But it's definitely up there.

My daughter's fourth-grade reading teacher urged that parents continue the practice of reading to their children, and specifically recommended ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN. It had been some 35-40 years since I had read the work myself, and so I relished the opportunity to read it again with my daughter.

For those who have just arrived from another planet, HUCK FINN is 19th-century humor writer Mark Twain's episodic adventure tale about a good-hearted young rustic named Huckleberry Finn, who boldly and ingeniously escapes the abusive treatment of his father and sets off on a raft down the Mississippi River. Almost immediately, he is joined by a runaway slave of his previous acquaintance named Jim. The greater part of this lengthy novel consists of the various adventures they experience on the River, including an encounter with thieves aboard a sinking steamship, an escape from a bloody family feud, and, most prominently, various scrapes in the company of a couple of ne'er-do-wells who wish to be treated by Jim and Huck as the Duke of Bridgewater and the King of England. The novel is written as a sequel of sorts to THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER, but can be read independently of it.

Two things stood out for me in reading HUCK FINN aloud; with respect to the language, the racial epithets and Twain's masterful attention to dialect. Let me start with the second: reading this story aloud really helps one appreciate the dialects that Mark Twain captures in the novel. Certainly, Jim's dialect is different from Huck's, but with careful attention to the language one will also notice the distinctive dialects of the other prominent characters such as the Duke and King. The first thing that stood out for me is how uncomfortable I was reading a literary work--even a classic such as this one--that liberally uses the "N" word and heaps other abuse on African Americans.

This is one reason the book is banned by many libraries. In reading HUCK FINN with my daughter, however, I found that the story could be both a literary experience and a teaching tool. We could and did discuss the terrible power of words to hurt people, as well as the treatment of slaves in 19th-century America. Also, over the course of the novel, Huck Finn comes to see the humanity in Jim and sees him as a friend. Still, the novel doesn't entirely justify itself on those grounds, particularly after the humiliating treatment Jim experiences in the final chapters. Moreover, one might argue that, at least in parts of the story, Jim comes off as a racial caricature.

Thus the novel does pose a challenge to the reflective and concerned parent. HUCK FINN is no doubt a masterpiece of fiction. It is, moreover, a humorous and sometimes moving adventure story (albeit one that moves at a deliberate pace compared to 21st-century YA fiction). Nonetheless, with respect to the racism that is pervasive in the novel, in reading this story to children one should be prepared to talk about its underlying social problems in the light of American history and contemporary mores.

My daughter and I read this edition (Puffin Classics). It is a conveniently sized book that does not stint on font size to create a small format paperback. It would not be the edition I would choose permanently to grace one's library, but it is an excellent choice for children.