by Sid Fleischman
ages: 9-12
First sentence: “So often had Mark Twain suffered through bumbling introduction before he rose to speak that he sometimes chose to introduce himself.”

When I was in 7th grade, I had an abiding love for Mark Twain. We had read Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (I had read Tom Sawyer the summer before), and I was totally and completely smitten. In short, I would have adored this biography, had it existed when I was in 7th grade.

Even now, I adored this book. Not just for the wealth of information about Sam Clemens aka Mark Twain, or for the illustrations/photographs that grace it’s pages, or even for the beautiful layout and font that it was written in (it was one of those rare times that I kept flipping pages because it was just so satisfying to flip the pages and gaze at the text). No, I adored this book because Fleischman was so, well, amusing.

He had me with this passage:

When I was the young writer of a novel, The New York Times reviewed my comedy with the news that I was no Mark Twain. I was astonished. I had already had myself fitted for a white suit, like the celebrated author of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. I had been trying to track down the brand of cigars he smoked by the handful. His wit may have come from the noxious weed. Who knew?

I was gone. Hook, line, and sinker.

Fleishman spends the book recounting the origins of Mark Twain — from Clemens birth through his rough and wild days in Nevada and San Fransisco, through until he became famous. He’s not all that interested in what Twain did with the rest of his life — the later books (aside from Huck Finn) only get a passing glance, as do the last 50 years of Twain’s life. But, then, that’s not what’s important (or humorous) to the book. No, it’s the young Twain, the wild Twain, the one that’s observing, exaggerating, writing, figuring that’s the interesting Twain.

It isn’t a detailed book, though: there’s facts but Fleischman is more interesting, it would seem, in the story that is Twain’s life. It’s not as dry as a typical biography, but then it’s also not as detailed. Thankfully, Fleishman has a book list (in order of importance and relavance) in the back that will point anyone curious to know more about Twain in the right direction.

Most of all, though, Fleishman treats Twain probably excatly the way that Twain himself would want to be treated: with equal parts grace, humor and skepticism. Which makes it an absolutely wonderful read.

(It also made me want to go and re-read the works I’ve read in the past, as well as crack open Roughing It and Innocents Abroad, neither of which I’ve ever read. That says a lot about the book in and of itself, doesn’t it?)