Penrod Audiobook By Booth Tarkington cover art

Penrod

Preview
Get this deal Try for $0.00
Offer ends July 31 2025 at 11:59PM PT
Prime logo
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Penrod

By: Booth Tarkington
Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
Get this deal Try for $0.00

$14.95/mo. after 3 months. Offer ends July 31 2025 at 11:59PM PT. Cancel anytime.

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $11.87

Buy for $11.87

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

Penrod is a collection of comic sketches by Booth Tarkington that was first published in 1914. The book follows the misadventures of Penrod Schofield, an 11-year-old boy growing up in the pre-World War I Midwestern United States, in a similar vein to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Like most children, Penrod gets caught up in his own elaborate lies with hilarious results. His friends and his dog accompany him on his many jaunts, from the stage as "the Child Sir Lancelot", to the playground, to school. They make names for themselves as "bad boys" who, fittingly, always have the most fun. This humorous, thoughtful story is a wonderful example of the real-life characterization and attention to detail for which Tarkington is celebrated.

More than a century after it was first published to incredible popularity and acclaim, Penrod remains wildly funny and entertaining to adults and children alike.

Public Domain (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing
Classics Funny Witty
adbl_web_global_use_to_activate_webcro805_stickypopup
All stars
Most relevant  
still funny! Loved Herman and Vermin. A boys passing into teens 80 years ago. Still relevant.

great book . Loved hearing it again.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Wonderful, wistful, and beautifully intricate. Although more than 100 years have passed , the sweet, and sometimes rough , rites of passage remain the same.

PENROD is a true gem

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

An excellent reading of a tale of great whimsy , humor and pathos ( Duke , the long suffering mutt quite heart wrenching) ; Tarkington, an author not as well known as in his day, captures boyhood in all its idyllic, ornery charm. In a coarse world we would benefit from a Tarkington revival .

Pernod

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Now two of my favorite books were written by Booth Tarkington: The Magnificent Ambersons, and Penrod. What a talent.

From 1914. It’s not so much the high-flown language, comically applied to childish subject matter, that makes the book so hilarious, as it is the scenarios and keenly observed behavior of the children. The whole thing is funny from beginning to end, but the episodes acquire a bit more depth as they go along. The bully Rupe chapters are rousing.

I laughed out loud even more than in a Jeeves novel. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if Tarkington were an influence on Wodehouse. And on the writers of Leave It to Beaver, too. Thanks to Matt Groening for his recommendation, which I read in an essay years ago. It’s not hard to see Bart Simpson in Penrod. No thanks to the late Robert Gottlieb of The New Yorker, who used our current critical neglect of Tarkington to argue he was a “hack.” Great critical skills there.

Hope we get the other books too

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Amusing - the life of an eleven year boy, from his perspective. Young flirtations, as they were.

Old fashioned Fun‼️

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.