Mark Twain

You should ever bear in mind that it is to your kind parents that you are indebted for your food, and for the privilege of staying home from school when you let on that you are sick. Therefore you ought to respect their little prejudices, and humor their little whims, and put up with their little foibles until they get to crowding you too much. When Mark Twain wrote the sparky short story "Advice to Little Girls" in 1865, he probably didn't mean for it to be shown to them. Or maybe he did, since we all know Twain was a rascal. Now, author and illustrator Vladimir Radunsky has created a picture book based on Twain's text that adds all the right outlandish touches. Born on November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri, Samuel L. Clemens wrote under the pen name Mark Twain. He wrote two major classics of American literature, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He was also a riverboat pilot, journalist, lecturer, entrepreneur, and inventor. Whether or not it was Mark Twain's actual intention for little girls to read this humorous short story, it's clear that he did not talk down to children, but rather expected them to stretch themselves in order to grasp sophisticated, adult meaning. Vladimir Radunsky has illustrated many books to great acclaim. Recently, Radunsky has been moving farther and farther away from the traditional picture book and into other more innovative forms. The most recent example is a work published by HarperCollins of hip-hop poetry for children, where the graffiti art has migrated from the walls into a printed book. Radunsky has published more than thirty books for children, mostly in the United States. Many of them were translated and published in France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, and Japan.

"All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn" Ernest Hemingway. For å forstå den amerikanske sjel, bør man lese Huckleberry Finn. Fortellingen om fattiggutten med alkoholisert far som reiser nedover Mississippi sammen med slaven Jim. I motsetning til i Tom Sawer er fortellingen lagt i munnen på hovedpersonen. Det innebærer at mye er skrevet i slang og ikke minst inkluderer alle de stereotype oppfattelsene som var vanlig i USAs sørstater i tiden rett før borgerkrigen. Boken har alltid vært og er fortsatt kontroversiell, men er også en av de viktigste bøkene i den amerikanske litterære kanon. Brageprisvinneren (for oversettelsen av Moby Dick) Bjørn Herrman har laget en spenstig og moderne oversettelse av en av de virkelig store klassikerne i Vestens litteraturhistorie.

Two boys from two different walks of life change places and alter their paths forever in this American classic from Mark TwainLondon, 1547. Two boys meet by chance and strike up a conversation at the gates of a palace. Tom Canty is a poor young boy with few prospects in life; his new friend happens to be Prince Edward VI, the Prince of Wales. The prince and the pauper could not be more different from one another, except for the small fact that they look identical. When Tom admires the prince's fine garments, he and Prince Edward decide on the spur of the moment to swap clothes. But with cruel irony the prince is mistaken for a poor beggar in Tom's rags and kicked out of his own palace while Tom is taken to be the prince by everyone he meets. Suddenly the prince and the pauper have swapped not only clothes but also their homes, families, lives, and their very identities. While the boys are eager to learn about life in someone else's shoes, they ultimately want to return to their own homes and families. But this proves to be a tall order when nobody believes the prince's claims that he is really a prince despite being clothed in rags. This gripping tale of mistaken identity sees Mark Twain venturing into historical fiction for children while displaying his typical flair for witty dialogue and incisive satire.