It depends on what age group this book is directed at. When I was 10 in 1968, I read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (an expurgated version, I am sure as I remember no controversial words or discussions). When I was in high school (11th grade I think) and again in American Lit in university, I read unexpergated editions of The Adventrues of Huckleberry Finn. Different things were focussed upon and discussed each time. From all the literary technical stuff to the social commentary.

Looking at it retrospectively, I was a child in a small town in south east Virginia at the height of Civil Rights movement, I think it was quite brave of my teacher Mrs. Frink to have us reading even the watered down version.   Though at the time, I did not make connections to what was happening politically in my own town, which was school desegregation.

Actually I think the reprint and the media storm it causes might be a good thing. It will set people talking about the issues surrounding socially acceptable literature and the corruption of literary art. I would like to see teachers using both versions in the classroom and discussing the historical, social and literary implications of such changes.