is a humorous biography of Samuel Clemens' early years spent in Nevada and California. Clemens formative years were spent working as a printing apprentice, a steamboat pilot, a gold digger, a newspaper man, and a traveling correspondent before ever publishing under his famous pseudonym.
Fleischman is the perfect biographer for Twain's humorous view on life. The way Fleischman writes is brilliant - his phrases are hilarious and make the simplest details interesting. Twain had such an awesome sense of humor and coined about a million one-liner phrases that I wanted to quote. This is the perfect book for kids who need to do a report but loathe reading boring biographies. This is such an interesting story that I recommend it to anyone who is interested in Twain or just wants to read a funny book.
A sample of Fleischman's awesome writing:
"He changed literature forever. He scraped earth under its fingernails and taught it to spit. He slipped in a subversive American sense of humor. He made laughing out loud as respectable as afternoon tea." p. 6
And a favorite Twain one-liner:
"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug." qtd p. 172
Read-alikes:
Such a unique book, I would stick with stuff by Twain and Fleischman:
I recently enjoyed A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and the classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
which has a lot of autobiographical elements from Twain's childhoodAlso I enjoyed The Whipping Boy
by Sid FleischmanRATINGS:
s-factor: !
Twain tended to use some mild cuss words.
mrg-factor: none
v-factor: none
Overall rating: ****
