As a high school English teacher, I am always looking for ways to bring the story to the students so it comes to life. Since I love movies, it's logical to show film clips in order to emphasize certain points. For that reason, I try to get as many different versions of a piece as I can - especially when it's "Huck Finn." I found this one on accident - $5 at a gas station. Very much worth it. It works for young kids because it removes the controversial items in the text. But it works for teaching because it does a really nice job of portraying the characters while still being extremely accessible. The reductions in story are done really nicely - even where they don't follow the text exactly, they capture the spirit. Huck's Pap is probably my favorite character - he says little compared to the book, but his shadiness is shown very well in just a few scenes.
Scenes I recommend: (1) invading the Sunday School picnic (not essential to the novel but a nice scene in cartooning) (2) Huck breaking free (no pig blood) (3) the sinking ship scene (Huck's Pap is one of the robbers - not so much a drunkard - who sinks with the ship), (4) the separation in the fog (combined with the boat that hits the raft) (5) the Shepardson/Grangerford incident - reduced to five minutes but, again, captures it really nicely (no one actually dies).
Obviously, if you want "faithful to the book," forget it. It's not. There's no real death, there's no king and duke (I really would have loved to have seen these two drawn with these animators), there's no "freeing Jim." Basically you've got 18 of the 43 chapters, and greatly reduced/changed at that. But for some really nice expressions of the characters, it's just a great piece. I highly recommend it for teaching or even for an evening at home with the kids.
(Also available on Netflix)
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