It seems kind of pointless to explain who the main character of the Adventures of Tom Sawyer is. You know him already, as I did long before I finally got around to reading it. My only previous encounter with Tom was from Huckleberry Finn, which I read in high school and liked well enough. Comparing the two is difficult, given how long it's been. I got different things out of both books, but whetherit that's a result of the books or me is hard to say.
One thing that struck me about Tom Sawyer is how episodic it feels. There is an overarching plot involving the boys witnessing a murder and a stolen treasure, but its first inklings don't appear until almost a third of the way through the book, and drop off regularly to explore the minutia of daily life as a boy, which seems to be the book's true passion. The plot heavy stuff almost seems like an excuse to justify the gags and slice-of-life vignettes, which is where Twain excells and where the book comes most to life. It's no surprise that the most famous scene, where Tom tricks the neighborhood children into whitewashing a fence for him, has nothing to do with Injun Joe or stolen gold at all.
The plot is fun as a parody of adventure stories popular at the time, but the book's greatest strength is its humor, and a lot of spots were very funny. I don't recall seeing Huck Finn that way, but again that may have been a lack of familiarity with older literature. In any case, my appetite has been sufficiently whetted to make me pick it back up in the near future.