Customer Reviews

Penrod and Sam

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

 

 

Another collection of tales about Penrod Schofield and his playmate Sam. Together, the two of them get into more trouble than Dennis the Menace and the Little Rascals combined.

The tales contained weren't as interesting as the original Penrod however I was laughing out loud a time or two. Tarkington has the mannerisms down pat for a twelve year-old boy living around the WW1 area.

This book is listed as a juvenile book, however, I wouldn't recommend it for children unless they weren't afraid of dictionaries and some politically incorrect references to African-Americans. There is also a chilling tale about Penrod and Sam finding an old gun in Sam's father's drawer and what occurred with it. Too real in today's world, however the result of the tale was sobering.

A warm and very funny picture of small town boy's life in pre-World War One America. It's told in a series of episodes that center around the two twelve year old or so boys of the title. It's not really a boy's book, despite its reputation. Tarkington's very interested in the psychology of Penrod's family as well as in the ways that kids relate to each other -- but it's all played for laughs. Also a clear picture of the mores of small-town America at a time when homes still had carriage houses in the back -- but no carriages or horses.

A wonderful classic and a prime example of literature in the early 19th century. Booth Tarkington explores the bumptious rambles of a youth from 1913 named Penrod. Penrod does not bump through life alone however, and he is accompanied by his loyal yet aging dog duke, his best friend Sam Williams, and two African Americans across the alley, Herman and Verman. I found this book to be a charming and hillarious classic and is a must for any serious bookworm.

Not quite up to "Penrod," but still a lot of fun. The ending lacks the satisfaction of that of its predecessor--but there's no way it could match THAT.

This was one of the first books that I read... my mother had bought it as part of the children's classics of the month series, which arrived at our home by mail back in the day. When I first read the book, I found the archaic slang of the American children depicted as intriguing and it was my first realization that, slang apart, American boys before World War I were quite similar to the American pre-adolescents whom I knew in the early 1960s. The scenario changed, but the issues were the same: acceptance, meaning, adventure, desire to build, peer pressure, desire to prove oneself...

So, the main characters became favorite people to me, both Penrod (hero of earlier books) and Sam (yes, I liked the modest and bumbling Sam much more than I did the arrogant but ever-popular Penrod).

Now, I do not know how this book would be accepted by American pre-adolescents today, nearly 100 years after its first publication... It did stand the test of time for the first 50 years, I think (or I certainly thought so as an 11-year-old reading this in 1961). I'd love to see what kids today think of it.

THIS SELLER WAS EXCELLENT HE REFUNDED MY MONEY AFTER I REPORTED THE BOOK DID NOT ARRIVE I APPRECUIATE IT AND WILL BUY FROM HIM AGAIN.