The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Now, when we were all forced to read "Tom Sawyer" in middle school, i thought 'Oh, great, we get to read a book about some dumb hillbilly who paid a bunch of stupid kids to do his work for him...' And, while most people found themselves hating every second of the story, i found myself drawn in. The story of Tom Sawyer worked its way into my brain and twisted around and around. How could one about-twelve-year-old kid be so brave? I wore my hair in braids to be like Bekcy Thatcher and sometimes unconisously found myself speaking like a Southern Belle.
I was so engrossed that I made my mom buy me the sequal to Tom's adventure- "Huckleberry Finn," the tale of Tom's best friend and partner in crime.

Thirteen-year-old Huck is taken in by the Widow Douglas and eventually stolen back by his drunken father, Pap. Now, old Pap Finn wants Huck's money he found with Tom. And he wants it bad.
So HUck, naturally, runs away. Until he meets Jim, the Widow's sister, Mrs. Watson's runaway slave. He didn't want to be "sold down the river," so he and Huck run away together. (These kids seem to do a lot of running away, huh?)
HUck and Jim make their way down the river and meet "all kinds of folks"- from two conmen that wish nothing mroe than to get as much money as possible to Tom Sawyer's very own Aunt Sally who mistakes Huck for Tom and Tom for Sid.
With his trusty ally Tom back at his side, Huck Finn plans to help Jim escape prison, but not before a whole lot of trouble and more of Tom's elaborate schemes.
In the end, back to "learning to be civilized like other folks," Huck wonders how that'll work out. After all, look what happened the last time!

Though this book was a bit hard to read because of the different dialects, my seventh-grade brain found a way to process it. My friends eventually made my sign a contract to drop Tom Sawyer the day after my birthday and find something else. Little do they know I sneak bits of these books into everyday conversation with them and still read the books before bed. ;)
if you think you're up to the challenge, pick this book up right away. Huck Finn awaits.

"I never seen anybody but lied, one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt POlly- Tom's Aunt Polly, she is- and Mary, and the Widow Douglas, is all told about in that [Tom's] book- which is mostly a true book; with some stretchers, as i said before."