American Boy: The Adventures of Mark Twain

by Don Brown

Overview

Our popular image of Mark Twain is of a gruff, gray-haired eccentric, the outspoken literary giant who created enduring novels such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

But once upon a time, Mark Twain was a boy named Samuel Clemens. His birth on November 30, 1835, coincided with the appearance of Halley’s comet, streaking across the sky. A dreamer, a prankster, a lover of great tales, Sam Clemens spent his boyhood years living out adventures on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River.

Don Brown is the award-winning author and illustrator of many picture book biographies. He has been widely praised for his resonant storytelling and his delicate watercolor paintings that evoke the excitement, humor, pain, and joy of lives lived with passion. School Library Journal has called him “a current pacesetter who has put the finishing touches on the standards for storyographies.” He lives in New York with his family.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780547349855
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	05/22/2006
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
File size:	21 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

Don Brown is the award-winning author and illustrator of many picture book biographies. He has been widely praised for his resonant storytelling and his delicate watercolor paintings that evoke the excitement, humor, pain, and joy of lives lived with passion. School Library Journal has called him "a current pacesetter who has put the finishing touches on the standards for storyographies." He lives in New York with his family.

Editorial Reviews

With his usual solid research and pen-and-ink and watercolor wash accompaniment, Don Brown examines the young life of Samuel Clemens in American Boy: The Adventures of Mark Twain. The author examines the boy's rebellious nature and the adventures that found their way into his books (the character of Huck Finn, for instance, was based on Sam's friend Tom, who was "ignorant, unwashed, and insufficiently fed; but he had as good a heart as any boy had," according to Sam); Brown also tells how Sam adopted his pen name from a term used by a steamboat crew to indicate the water's depth. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Gr 2-6-Echoing Twain's voice, this picture book biography gets to the heart of his work. "The books were read everywhere. They delighted most people, offended others, and made everyone think. They still do." Watercolor illustrations capture characters and times with understated skill. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Brown begins his beautifully constructed picture-book biography with young Sam’s dangerous escapade on the frozen Mississippi River. Focusing on childhood incidents that will later appear in Twain’s books, Brown cunningly recalls the opening event in his conclusion: "Bye and bye, he remembered his boyhood, the glad morning of his life. As if skating ice cakes on a frozen river, Sam skipped from memory to memory and wove together great tales. . . . " Brown’s eloquent, old-fashioned language echoes Twain’s own words, also generously sprinkled throughout. "My literature attracted the town’s attention, but not its admiration," Brown quotes. Like his subject, Brown also skips from incident to incident, telling just enough to hold the reader’s interest, and like Twain, he makes the reader think, with his handling of such incidents as young Sam’s response to slavery, and his friendship with the outcast Tom Blankenship (the model for Huck Finn). Lively watercolors deftly depict Clemens’s exuberant character and youthful shenanigans, while their subdued tones are nostalgic. Includes bibliography and author’s note. (Picture book/biography. 8-10)

Kirkus Reviews

"Brown continues to apply his understated humor and muted watercolors to larger-than-life personalities in picture book biographies." School Library Journal, Starred

"Beautifully constructed…Brown's eloquent, old fashioned language echoes Twain's own words." Kirkus Reviews, Starred

“The boyhood of writer Samuel Clemens is irresistible, with much of his youth inspiring scenes in his works that have become folklore in their own right. Brown does a spirited job of telling some of those stories.” Booklist, ALA

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