Streaming Audio Book. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a humorous and nostalgic book depicting the carefree days of boyhood in a small Midwestern town. The characters are based on Twain's schoolmates and the town is Hannibal, Missouri-the setting where he grew up. So, what did boys do in a small town during the mid-1800's, a time when there were no televisions, no arcades and no movies? They whitewashed fences, floated rivers, traded marbles, formed secret societies, smoked pipes and, on occasion, managed to attend their own funerals.