The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a book of adventure and excitement for young Huck Finn, who takes a journey down the long, mysterious Mississippi River. He runs away from his home because he does not take kindly to the lifestyle of his host, the Widow Douglas, who is trying to civilize him. He is disgusted with this lifestyle, and is relieved when his father comes around and takes him away. However his relief does not last for long. Living with his alcoholic father gets lonesome when he locks Huck in the cabin for days without his father's return. So Huck uses his wits to escape and fake his death so no one will look for him, and he rides to a nearby island.
While hiding on Jackson Island, he finds out he isn't the only one there. A slave belonging to Miss Watson's sister was also there. The run-away slave, Jim, had escaped because he heard that Miss Watson was going to sell him down to New Orleans, and he didn't want that. So Huck and Jim go on many adventures, and have great times. But the fun and games are all over when they run into some pretty sticky situations.
Huck's curiosity and sense of adventure gets the best of them when they run across a broken down ferry boat and go aboard. With luck not being their friend, Huck discovers that the boat holds two murders and a man tied up on the floor. Jim successfully escapes, but unfortunately for Huck, he gets trapped. He steals their little boat so the murderers are stuck on the sinking ferry, and he and Jim escape. Even though Huck is a ruthless young boy, his heart is good and he feels bad and guilty for letting the murderers go and the tied up man drown.
After many other adventures, Huck eventually runs into two men who are running away from a group of men. Huck helps them and takes them to the raft, where they tell their stories of what they have been up to. It turns out that each are from the so called 'royal' family, the younger man being a duke, and the other a king. They say this to trick Huck and Jim, so they will be served and treated with honor, even though Huck does not believe them. The king and duke are witty, cheating people who scam people of their money, going town to town fooling others.
Their games get them all in a sticky situation when the king and duke take on their worst game yet, pretending to be a dead man's brothers. No one in the town has ever met Peter Wilk's brother before, so the town's people believed in their trick when they arrived. Huck was mortified by the two, ashamed to even be around them. He wanted nothing to do with them, and couldn't stand that they stole from this poor family. So at the end, when they are all eventually caught for being fakes when the real brother arrives, Huck escapes, successfully finding Jim and riding off. But sadly, the king and duke catch up to them, and yet again, Huck must put up with their wicked ways.
After a few days of being on the run, they come across another town, where the king and duke plan to do another one of their performances. While the duke and Huck were finding the king, Huck ran back to the raft, so Jim and he could try to escape once more. But when he arrived, Jim was gone. The king had sold him to the Phelps, and Huck was determined to free his companion. So Huck sets out to the plantation, and luck doesn't come with him. When he arrives, he gets caught and is mistaken for his best friend, Tom Sawyer. It turns out the Phelps are related to Tom, and they were expecting Tom to visit soon. So Huck plays along, pretending he is Tom, when the real Tom Sawyer comes along.
When Tom spots Huck, he couldn't believe his eyes. But when Huck finally convinced him he was not a ghost, he tells him of his problem, and that Jim has been caught. Tom quickly agrees to help him and starts to make a plan. So Tom and Huck go on this very elaborate adventure to break out Jim. They give Jim all sorts of very unnecessary things, such as a shirt to write on, a rope ladder baked in a pie, and pens made of candle holders. Tom is a very dead-set young man, who wants everything to be an adventure. So he conducted all of these silly parts of the escape, making it much harder and longer than was really needed. Even though he made the escape much more difficult, they all enjoyed it, and that made Tom a good example of how to live life to the fullest, making every day another adventure in your life.
This book is very well written and is one of my favorites. It has many surprises and twists, such has Jim finding Huck's father dead in a house floating down a river, and Miss Watson setting Jim free while he and Huck were on the run. Jim and Huck make a great team, going on many adventures and both bringing out the best in one another. Jim is a superstitious, but very kind and worried man who looks out for Huck and loves him like he was his own. And Huck is a little boy with a big heart, who wishes to make his life better and not wrong people. Throughout the book, Huck's heart and mind battles him with the choices he makes. This shows that Huck is a great young boy who cares for others, and does what he thinks is right. Many times he wanted to tell on Jim for running away, because he felt guilty for helping him escape from Miss Watson, but he felt worse for making this poor man go back into slavery. Huck is glad he didn't tell, for they became best friends and relied on each other through thick and thin.
