Customer Reviews

Mark Twain's Book For Bad Boys and Girls

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Even a book this small reveals how wonderful was the pen of Mark Twain. It is brimming with good-natured mischief and well-told yarns. It is the perfect antidote to the smarmy nonsense plopped onto the bookshelves by The Gambling Gourmand, William Bennett. A perfect gift for an intelligent youngster, and a delight for adults.

This is a great little book. A gift to kids that will touch their minds and set off mini-explosions of laughter and possibility. William Bennett, the idiot of our times, could never have thought of this stuff and doesn't have the intellect or imagination to be able to write this well. Let's buy this book and dismiss William Bennett. Mark Twain is an American original.

I have always appreciated the work of Mark Twain. He manages to combine a witty, sardonic pen with a quality narrative approach that has always kept me engaged in his wonderful stories. So, I had hoped that this little collection of snippets from his works would be equally charming.

Unfortunately, I came to realize about halfway through this book that Twain's biting sarcasm is only pallatable in sporadic doses. In this book, there is no narrative to follow and no characters to develop. Instead, his many biting comments about morality, the church, and virtue are slammed up against each other, to a rather jarring effect. He repeatedly lambasts anyone and everyone who would encourage young people to make good choices, with no breather in between.

In this form, I found Twain to be mean-spirited, arrogant, and offensive. Though there are a few touching moments that prevent me from rating it with 1 star, I would not recommend this book to anyone, especially not to children. The nasty side of Twain's wit is exposed for all of its ugliness, and I did not enjoy the view.