Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

By: Mark Twain

Narrated by: B. J. Harrison

Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

Huckleberry Finn is the original American maverick. He chooses the things that feel the most comfortable for him, regardless of what others may say. But when he is forced to flee his home, and comes into company with Jim, a runaway slave, his sound heart collides with his ill-trained conscience. Together, Huck and Jim journey down the Mississippi River, on an odyssey that has become one of the finest American Classics in the world of literature. This timeless novel is performed by award-winning Classic Tales narrator B.J. Harrison. It is an event you won't want to miss.

Public Domain (P)2009 B.J. Harrison

What to do?

I want my children to read or listen to the classics. Huckleberry Finn is definitely a classic and it really shows the lives of the people in the South before the Civil War. The prejudice towards the black men and women is unbelievable. Even Huck is prejudice. I'm okay with my kids hearing this because I can teach them about history and that is really how people looked at other people just because of the color of their skin and why we don't want to do that. However the "N" word is a very prominent word in this book. You don't just hear it once in a while. I had it pop into my mind several times as a new part of my thinking vocabulary (for lack of a better term for it). It was never part of it before and I don't like that hateful word at all. I wish we could hear the story without such a hateful word popping up every page or so. But it is Mark Twain's work and really is a part of our past, like it or not. What do we do? Is there anything that can be done without making it an abridged version? The Narrator is fantastic! I even went looking for other books read by him.

Excellent narration

Harrison performs each voice uniquely. It’s impressive and entertaining. While Twain makes a dent in racism by showing Jim’s integrity, he also shows how deeply embedded it is even with people who care about him.

great fun

loved this book. loved the performance. bj Harrison was excellent. much better than Alan munro

Fantastic book

What a lovely book. Mark Twain really brings you in to the fantastical mind of the young characters. By the by, I haven't had this much fun with a good in a good long while. The narrator is phenomenal.

American Classic

Great narrator, does all the different dialect well. Re-read from high school and enjoyed it much more the 2nd time. Truly captures the era.

a classic

great story and narration. will take you back as if you are with huck while he tells it.

A real pleasure to listen to.

The different voices used for each and every character really made this story come alive!

Great book, good themes...

My dad and I are writing this review together. I read this with my dad. It has many great adventures and explores many important themes, like group think, racisim, doing the right thing - even if society thinks it's wrong. In fact, this book dives into how backwards and wrong society was when it came to slavery. There are many parallel and relevant themes today (like abortion). I have to admit that it was difficult to read and hear the 'n' word said so many times, but I think it is important that we don't forget our history, as ugly as some of it was. It made us think of all of the ugly things that society (and ourselves) are doing now that we may justify but will have deep regrets about in the future.

The narration was very entertaining. For a lot of the book we read along with the narration. The narrator changed accents and it was well done.

We also used Litcharts.com to help understand the deeper themes and meanings of the book.

Narration Made the Story That Much More Enjoyable

If you could sum up Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in three words, what would they be?

A classic adventure featuring a country boy escaping the life he was pushed into, and meeting various characters along the Mississippi river.

What other book might you compare Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to and why?

Tom Sawyer! Because both are by Mark Twain, but in point of fact, this book did not really pick up until Tom entered the picture in the later quarter of the book.

Which character – as performed by B. J. Harrison – was your favorite?

Tom Sawyer. Tom was well written by Twain who used the character to bring out laughs from the situations that he and Huck find themselves in. B.J. Harrison does an admirable job with them, and the was able to include the comedic vocal styling needed to make this story come alive.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Having escaped reading this one, I finally decided at age 54 to listen to it. My extreme reaction was that I was surprised how bored I was by a large part of it, but I am glad I hung on, because there were scenes within the book where I laughed out loud, so in the end it was worth it.

Any additional comments?

I wanted to hear this book and went hunting for what I hoped would be a good narrator. Reading comments on various choices, I went with this one, and I am not disappointed!

A dear old friend

what can I say? This is one of my favorite books of American literature and I will read it again in about 10 years.