Penrod.

Penrod is Booth Tarkington’s lively, episodic portrait of American boyhood before the First World War, built from pranks, schemes, embarrassments, loyalties, and moments of sudden feeling. Rather than following a single dramatic plot, the book accumulates force through scene after scene in the life of Penrod Schofield, whose bravado, confusion, tenderness, and appetite for trouble make him one of the memorable comic children of early twentieth-century fiction.

Why read Penrod today?

Tarkington is exceptionally good at the rhythms of childhood: the private codes of friendship, the theater of school and family life, and the serious emotional stakes hidden inside jokes and mischief. Readers who enjoy Tom Sawyer-style classics will find similar energy here, but also a more social, observant comedy about class expectations, respectability, and the performance of growing up.

Reading with historical context

Penrod is also a book of its time, and some attitudes and language reflect the social assumptions of early twentieth-century America. That context is worth keeping in view. Read now, the novel can be appreciated both as a funny, sharply written coming-of-age classic and as a revealing record of the culture that produced it.

Further context

Wikipedia: Penrod.