Is Huckleberry Finn a children's book?

[kev67]

Do you consider Huckleberry Finn to be a children's book? The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is, but I am not sure about Huckleberry Finn. I read Tom Sawyer as a boy and enjoyed it. I started reading Huckleberry Finn, but it was quite long. iirc I enjoyed it at first, then started to get bored with it, and then put it down. Maybe if it had stopped at the end of chapter 16, which I think may have been Twain's original plan, it could have been a children's book. In the chapter I read today, all those confused lines from Shakespeare's plays, and the mixing up for comedic effect of Henry VIII, 1001 Nights and The Domesday book would have gone right over my head.

[desiresjab]

Hucklebree Finn can go that way if it has to, but it exists more naturally as a contribution to mature literature. I would say it is a children's story but not a children's book, if that makes any sense. All the vulgarities were part of Twain I really enjoyed. He was at his playful best. I enjoyed hearing our teacher read the book aloud. She was a good reader. But I did not like reading it for myself yet in the fourth grade.

[kev67]

I don't think Huckleberry Finn is a children's book. I thought To Kill a Mockingbird was a children's book, but Huck Finn isn't. Maybe you could read it to children, and explain the confusing bits. I don't know how you should explain the naughty word.

It makes a change to read a classic that is actually fun to read, instead of something that feels like homework, or was written to be edifying, or to win a literary prize.

I imagine it would make a good audio book, with the various accents and figures of speech.