Reimagine The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with three new retellings offering an updated way to teach this classic book through new perspectives. Read together, these books are powerful complements that can facilitate conversations in the classroom about race, agency, and resiliency.
Learn more about each title below.
When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As many readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.
While many narrative set pieces of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place, Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light. Brimming with the electrifying humor and lacerating observations, James is destined to be a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature.
“[James] is a masterpiece that will help redefine one of the classics of American literature, while also being a major achievement on its own. . . I almost cannot imagine a future where teachers assign The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn without also assigning James alongside it.”—The Chicago Tribune
SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD AND THE BOOKER PRIZE
In his classic work Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain briefly introduces “Mary Jane, the red-headed one.” In no time Mary Jane becomes the girl Huck thinks about “a many and a many million times.” Now, author Hope Jahren has created for Mary Jane a life as vivid and compelling as Huck’s.
She is a girl on her own unpredictable journey down the Mississippi River in pre-Civil War America. Equipped with an uncanny ability for mathematics, a talent for sewing, and a bale of beaver skins, Mary Jane navigates deadly illnesses, angry mobs, outright thieves, and more than a thousand miles of muddy water. Traveling solo leads her to a new resilience and a blue-eyed, ponytailed boy she can’t stop thinking about.
Jahren offers a wealth of layered characters and deeply researched, authentic details of changing times in the North and South. Using the language and style of Twain, she explores timeless themes of duty and romance with grit and courage at the core.
Commonly regarded as one of the great American novels, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has captured the hearts and imaginations of readers since 1885. But since its publication, critics have rightfully condemned Mark Twain’s troubling portrayal of Black Americans as stereotypes and caricatures, with contemporary fans searching for a modern update to this iconic tale.
Big Jim and the White Boy is a radical retelling of this American classic, centering the experiences of Jim, an enslaved Black man in search of his kidnapped wife and children, along with his cheeky sidekick, Huckleberry Finn. With compelling artwork and riveting storytelling, David F. Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson push the boundaries of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in this incredible graphic novel, exploring the triumphs and tribulations of Jim and his family, and finally giving his due as a hero of American literature.
Resources:
National Humanities Center – The N-Word in the Classroom: Teaching Language Without Harm
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Related Titles collection
