On a beautiful June day in 1965, a dozen girls-classmates at a picturesque Blue Ridge women's college-launched their homemade raft (inspired by Huck Finn's) on a trip down the Mississippi. It's Girls A-Go-Go Down the Mississippi read the headline in the Paducah, Kentucky, paper. Thirty-five years later, four of those "girls" reunite to cruise the river again. This time it's on the luxury steamboat, The Belle of Natchez, and there's no publicity....

It was more than a century ago that Mark Twain left the notoriously violent Finn, Huckleberry Finn's father, dead, surrounded by such oddities as a wooden leg and women's undergarments. But just exactly how did Finn end up in that room? Clinch takes us on a journey through the mysterious life of an unusual man. Along the way, he introduces us to characters like the Judge--Finn's own frightening father--as well as Finn's sickly brother Will, the hermit...

A young runaway boards a raft and sets off down the Mississippi, setting in motion a series of memorable adventures that have intrigued readers of all ages for over a century. Huck Finn and his loyal companion, the escaped slave Jim, form one of literature's greatest friendships. This abridged, easy-to-read version includes 15 illustrations.

Years ago, in an America that never was, the United States government introduced herds of hippos to the marshlands of Louisiana to be bred and slaughtered as an alternative meat source. This plan failed to take into account some key facts about hippos: they are savage, they are fast, and their jaws can snap a man in two. By the 1890s, the vast bayou that was once America's greatest waterway belongs to feral hippos, and Winslow Houndstooth has been...