Classics Illustrated #19: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain by Michael Ploog

Classics Illustrated #19: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain by Michael Ploog
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The is latest issue (book 19) in this ongoing collection of graphic adapted versions of the classics. Having read Twain's original "Tom Sawyer" watched many movies, read retellings, etc., this is a story I come into knowing full well and I'm quite pleased with the adaptation. This publisher continuously does a splendid job on keeping the essence of the original work and bringing it alive in the graphic medium. I've been known to comment on the company's editorial choices of outlandish or shocking illustration but Tom Sawyer's illustration by Ploog struck me on the first page as beautiful and perfectly rendered to represent the historical time period the story is centred in. Of course, reducing a large classic novel to a short adaption is no easy feat, but Ploog has presented the original story with all the main story lines present and choosing to concentrate mostly on Tom and Huck's friendship, their typical capers of boys, then adding the tension, danger with Tom and Becky's getting lost in the cave then culminating with the trial and "Injun Joe"s part in the whole murder. Politics, satire and racial allusions are mostly kept out of this version. Leading me to say this volume is particularly aimed at the children audience these books can appeal to. Even though most of the series is just as well-appreciated by adults, who never read the classics, want refreshers without reading the original again, or would like to experience them in a new way through this different format.

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