Wrestling with Tom Sawyer

  A Cast of Classic Characters

     If you could bring one classic book’s characters to the real world, who would it be? Scrooge? Ishmael? For bookworms, Linus, Ophelia and their friend Walter, Tom Sawyer is their choice. They could do it too! They have a magic circle that can bring characters to their real world. However, Tom Sawyer turns out to be a whole bunch of trouble for the trio as he falls in love with Ophelia and gets into fights with the local bullies. When Ophelia goes missing, however, Tom shows his true mettle.
     The prospect of characters from classical literature becoming characters in modern literature makes for a fantastic story. Tom Sawyer’s character stayed true to that from his original tale throughout this book. This is a great book for teachers as the author defines numerous vocabulary words, parenthetically, and provides educational asides interspersed through the story adding humor or information on various topics. There are also some discussion questions and writing prompts in the back of the book. I gave this book five stars for its educational potential and lively plot.