This UK wide annual celebration covers the whole UK promoting the power of storytelling and story sharing. Throughout May the Federation of Children’s Book Groups organises and supports a range of events across the country. Each year has a theme and this year it’s Myths, Magic and Mayhem.
An adventure full of mayhem: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.
His real name is Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Mark Twain is a man of whom so much has been written and so many quotes whether rightly or wrongly have been attributed to.
Born shortly after an appearance of Halley’s Comet, and he predicted that he would “go out with it” as well; and he was right, he died the day after the comet returned.
All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn – Ernest Hemingway
While very much a book of its time, covering subject matter that is currently being questioned by many, Huckleberry Finn is simply a great adventure story. That’s what I love about it and always have since I was a child.
At the end of a previous book, ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’, Huckleberry Finn, a poor boy with a drunken bum for a father, and his friend Tom Sawyer, a middle-class boy with an imagination too active for his own good, found a robber’s stash of gold.
As a result of his adventure, Huck gained quite a bit of money, which the bank held for him in trust. Huck was adopted by the Widow Douglas, a kind but stifling woman who lives with her sister, the self-righteous Miss Watson.
We meet Huck at the beginning of his new ‘respectable’ life which he isn’t fond of. He’s kidnapped by his natural father but escapes and goes on the run.
A faked death, a runaway slave, bandits, con artists, risk of death and mistaken identities, it’s all there!
As with most Twain books for Copyright reasons it was published in the UK slightly before it was published in the United States and Gareth is lucky enough to own a UK First Edition as well as many other First Edition Twain Works. In fact, he’s such a fan that he even commissioned two Twain inspired chairs for his library!
We’d love to hear about it and why you love it so much. Drop us a line at info@keysafetv.com.
