Mark Twain - Gregg Camfield, editor

A title from the Sterling Publishers series "Stories for Young People".

This is a simple retelling of five stories by Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens), in which he pokes fun at newspapers, Victorian manners, obedience to one's parents, the British, and perceptions of reality.

Whilst I was aware that Mark Twin had written many works other than stories about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, I had never read any of them until now. I enjoyed these stories which show just how clever a wordsmith Twain was and how his writing is so full of 'tongue in cheek' humour. Each story begins with a short explanation of what follows to help make the text more accessible to the younger reader. There is also a glossary in the form of footnotes to explain some of the language used. The stories I enjoyed most were the final two - 'The 1, 000, 000 Pound Banknote' and 'A Fable', the moral of which was that "You can find in the text whatever you bring, if you will stand between it and the mirror of your imagination." Something I feel to be very accurate.