The main idea behind this story is just an average little schoolboy getting into loads of trouble all the time and learning things through experience. He's not the role model little boy at all, but he's certainly not the one everyone would pick on and such. Tom Sawyer goes out on all sorts of adventurous
adventures, some thought up through imagination and others as serious as a heart attack. Throughout this book you will notice how Tom Sawyer grow up into a more responsible person as it gets further into to the book and nearing the end. He doesn't do the childish things he would've earlier and he does things for other people instead of just for himself. The setting of the story takes place in the city of St. Petersburg, Missouri, and I'm guessing the time of the story is back in the late 1800's.