Mark Twain was born in Hannibal, Missouri, in 1835. An adventurous young man, Twain traveled around the United States. He worked as a Mississippi riverboat pilot, a miner, and a reporter. When Twain wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in 1872, most books presented boys as purely good or evil characters. Twain wanted his boy hero, Tom Sawyer, to be a real boy, so he based the book on his own boyhood adventures in Missouri. By witnessing a murder, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn find themselves in a series of adventures that lead them to some frightening situations. Written in graphic novel format.