Huckleberry Finn is one of the great American novels, brilliantly written by Mark Twain. Huck had a terrible childhood and a drunken father and when he runs away, he is truly alone in the world. The relationship between him and the escaped slave, Jim, is just marvellous--Shirley Hughes, Sunday Telegraph Finn is a brilliantly imagined mixture of wilyness and innocence-- Guardian All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn .There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since--Ernest Hemingway For a hundred years, the argument that this novel is has been identified, reidentified, examined, waged and advanced. What it cannot be is dismissed. It is classic literature, which is to say it heaves, manifests and lasts.--Toni Morrison, Guardian So what makes these different to any other set of classics? In a moment of inspiration Random House had the bright idea of actually asking Key stage 2 children what extra ingredients they could add to make children want to read.

And does it work? Well, put it this way.my 13-year-old daughter announced that she had to read a book over the summer holiday and, without any prompting, spotted The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.and proceeded to read it! Now, if you knew my 13-year-old daughter, you would realise that this is quite remarkable. She reads texts, blogs and tags by the thousand - but this is the first book she has read since going to high school, so all hail Vintage Classics!-- National Association for the Teaching of English.