The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a very well-known and popular story concerning American youth. Mark Twain's lively tale of the scrapes and adventures of boyhood is set in his hometown of Hannibal, Missouri, where Tom Sawyer and his friend Huckleberry Finn have the kinds of adventures many boys can imagine: racing bugs during class, impressing girls, i.e. Becky Thatcher, with fights and stunts in the schoolyard, getting lost in a cave, and playing pirates at the Mississippi river.
One of the most famous incidents in the book describes how Tom persuades his friends to do a boring, hateful chore for him: whitewashing (i.e., painting) a fence.
Tom Sawyer also appears in three other Mark Twain books — Tom Sawyer, Abroad, Tom Sawyer, Detective and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Of the books, Huck Finn is considered by far to have the most literary merit, with Tom Sawyer being more of a youth-oriented adventure story.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a very well-known and popular story concerning American youth.