“I could see no promise in him,” said Sam Clemens’s mother recalling the day he was born. Here, Don Brown reveals that Sam quickly showed spirit—if not promise—as he chronicles the lively boyhood of the man who would eventually take the name Mark Twain. Brown touches upon Sam’s friendship with boys like Will Bowen and Tom Blankenship, who would eventually be transformed, at least in part, to Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. And Uncle Dan, a slave owned by Sam’s uncle and who captivated Sam with his storytelling, became, at least in part, the runaway Jim. Brown doesn’t exploit these ideas—they come at the close of a narrative that lets incidents in the childhood of a much beloved (and sometimes controversial, Brown notes) storyteller unfold. As with all of his picture book biographies, Brown has created subtle watercolor-and-ink illustrations to accompany the text. (Ages 8–11)

Our popular image of Mark Twain is of a gruff, gray-haired eccentric, the outspoken literary giant who created enduring novels such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

But once upon a time, Mark Twain was a boy named Samuel Clemens. His birth on November 30, 1835, coincided with the appearance of Halley’s comet, streaking across the sky. A dreamer, a prankster, a lover of great tales, Sam Clemens spent his boyhood years living out adventures on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River.