Penrod

Booth Tarkington follows eleven-year-old Penrod Schofield through a run of small disasters in a Midwestern town on the eve of the First World War. Forced into an itchy costume as the Child Sir Lancelot, staging a backyard show with a homemade menagerie, or feuding with the neighborhood bullies, Penrod blunders from one scrape to the next with his dog Duke and friends Sam, Herman, and Verman at his side. There is no grand plot, only the honest comedy of boyhood observed with affection and a sharp ear. The sketches made Penrod a household name and a favorite comic portrait of American childhood. A free PDF and EPUB edition is available here.