"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain: Huck Finn is a 13-year-old Missouri lad who would rather be out fishing and loafing and living the country life than stuck in some school room learning how to be civilized. But Huck's mother is dead and his father, a miserable drunk, has skipped town, so Huck has fallen under the care of the Widow Douglas and her sister Miss Watson, who both want to see Huck become a right respectable gentleman. Any thoughts of returning to his old wild ways are dashed when Huck's best friend Tom Sawyer invites him to join his band of robbers, the sole condition being that Huck sticks it out with Widow Douglas and Miss Watson. After all, you have to be respectable if you want to be a thief.

Just when Huck is learning to tolerate his new life, his father shows up and makes a fresh mess of everything. Huck's Pa is an ornery old cuss who won't stand for his son trying to be better than him. He assumes custody of Huck and brings his schooling and civilized ways to an abrupt end, taking him out to a small shack in the woods to live and making the boy the target of all his drunken rage. While Huck likes being out in the country again, he isn't real keen on the beatings his father gives him. But he really doesn't want to go back to living with the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson, either. So Huck does what anyone would do... he kills a pig and uses the blood to help fake his own death. Why, I did the same thing to get out of gym class on more than one occasion. Who the hell wants to play volleyball?

Free from his father's drunken oppression and the tyranny of proper society, Huck hops a canoe and heads to Jackson Island in the middle of the Mississippi River to live the good life. Huck soon discovers he's not alone in hiding. Jim, one of Miss Watson's slaves, has also sought refuge on the island. He heard that Miss Watson was thinking about selling him down the river to a plantation in New Orleans. Confronted with the prospect of never seeing his family again, Jim decides to make a break for it. Huck was always fond of Jim, and he's mighty thankful for having some company, so the two decide to stick together.

Their peaceful time on the island is cut short, however, when Huck ventures across the river and learns that a search party is heading out to look for Jim. Huck is quick to warn his friend and the two set off down the Mississippi on a raft. The plan is to travel as far as the mouth of the Ohio River and then board a steamship headed North to freedom, where Jim would be able to take steps to reunite with his family. But even the best laid plans of little boys and runaway slaves go awry.

Huck and Jim find plenty of adventure on the Mississippi, not to mention invaluable lessons in truth, morality, and friendship. Huck is actually torn. As much as he likes Jim, he can't shake the feeling he's doing the wrong thing in helping him escape. Helping a runaway slave was about the worst thing a respectable southern fellow could do. It went against all that society had tried to teach him. But out on their raft in the middle of nowhere, free from the restrictions of "civilized" society, Huck learns to follow his heart and do what he believes is right, even if it puts him at odds with the world around him.

While the story is set around the time of the 1840s, when slavery was an accepted part of American life, Mr. Twain wrote the book between the years 1876 and 1883, with it first seeing print in 1884, some 20 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. It wasn't like things were all puppet shows and candy canes in the South once the Civil War ended. Slavery may have been abolished, but racism was still rampant, with plenty of southerners pining for the "good old days" before the war. Mr. Twain uses Huck and Jim's relationship to drive home the evils of slavery and the hypocrisy of Southern society. Jim, while sometimes foolish in his superstitions and beliefs, is always depicted as trustworthy, loyal, and honorable. The book sometimes comes under attack for Mr. Twain's use of authentic Southern dialect, including the repeated use of a certain N-word that is nothing but a hateful racial slur today, but the work is far from racist. This is what America was like back in 1840; this is how people talked; this is how blacks were treated. Ignoring it or pretending it didn't happen won't make it go away.

When not condemning slavery, Mr. Twain delves further into one of his favorite subjects: the truth, or the stretching of it. Huck is quite the little liar. He isn't scared to spin a yarn to save his skin. But Huck and Jim meet a pair of honest to goodness con-artists who show just how hateful a lie can be. Mr. Twain also thrusts Huck into the middle of a Southern family feud to show the ridiculousness of pride and family honor, while also taking a stiff jab at the cowardice of mob justice.

Over the final few chapters, the book becomes a rather clever comedic farce as Huck and Tom Sawyer join forces to try and free Jim once and for all. While their preparations may linger a bit too long, there's still lots of fun to be had in reading how their plan comes together.

But when I reflect on "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," three scenes will always leap to mind. The first occurs when Huck encounters two men on the river looking for runaway slaves. Huck fights the urge to tell the truth, electing instead to protect Jim with an ingenious bit of lying. It's a pivotal point in not only the book but also Huck's maturation.

The second scene would be when Jim tells Huck about a time when he was surprisingly mean to one of his children. Jim had asked his young daughter to close the door, but she seemed to refuse, just standing their looking at him with a silly smile on her face. Jim, kind, gentle Jim, became so angry at her disobedience, he actually slapped her. Only later does he discover that the girl wasn't listening to him because she had gone deaf. The pain Jim feels in remembering the incident, the haunting regret that torments him, brings touching humanity to his character and will strike a chord with anyone who has ever hurt someone they love.

And the third memorable scene comes late in the book when Huck and Jim get separated, and Jim is captured by white slave owners. Not sure exactly what to do, Huck decides to write a letter to Miss Watson to tell her where Jim is since he's still rightfully her slave. He realizes sending the letter will destroy Jim's dreams of freedom, but what else can he do? Then, at the last second, Huck rips up the letter. In doing so, he not only commits to save his friend himself despite a considerable amount of personal risk, he also once and for all breaks free from the ways of "proper" society. He does what he believes is right. He becomes his own man. It's Huck's finest moment.

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