Reviews of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Right from the beginning, the book was seen as a story for children - or rather for boys. As the Athenaeum said

For some time past Mr. Clemens has been carried away by the ambition of seriousness and fine writing. In Huckleberry Finn he returns to his right mind, and is again the Mark Twain of old time. It is such a book as he, and he only, could have written. It is meant for boys; but there are few men (we should hope) who, once they take it up, will not delight in it. It forms a companion or sequel, to Tom Sawyer.

The Atlantic said

Mark Twain's new book for young folks, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (C.L. Webster & Co.), is in some sense a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, though each of the two stories is complete in itself.

And because of this perception, many reviewers were very upset by the book, as in this one from The San Francisco Evening Bulletin:

The author starts out by telling his juvenile readers that there are some lies in his book--that most people lie, and that it is not very bad after all. Of course the warning is timely that persons attempting to seek a moral in the story should be banished.

And Life wrote this sarcastic piece:

A very refined and delicate piece of narration by Huck Finn, describing his venerable and dilapidated 'pap' as afflicted with delirium tremens, rolling over and over, 'kicking things every which way,' and 'saying there are devils ahold of him.' This chapter is especially suited to amuse the children on long, rainy afternoons.

Finally, the book was banned from the Concord Public Library on the grounds that it was inapproporiate for children. Louisa May Alcott (author of 'Little Women') a member of the library's council said 'If Mr. Clemens cannot think of something better to tell our pure-minded lads and lasses he had best stop writing for them.'

But the San Francisco Chronicle defended the book, saying

The action of the Concord Public Library in excluding Mark Twain's new book, 'Huckleberry Finn,' on the ground that it is flippant and irreverent, is absurd. The managers of this library evidently look on this book as written for boys, whereas we venture to say that upon nine boys out of ten much of the humor, as well as the pathos, would be lost.