Tom Sawyer's actual age in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is not mentioned in the narrative; however, it is clear that he is a young adolescent. At the beginning of the story, Tom is portrayed as a childish and playful person, someone who has a kind heart and an adventurous spirit. He's quite mischievous and often gets into trouble with his best friends Joe Harper and Huckleberry Finn. Even though Twain doesn't reveal Tom's age, it can be assumed that both Tom and his closest friends are around eleven or twelve years old at the beginning of the novel.

As the story progresses, however, it becomes clear that Tom grows up a little. He develops a crush on Becky, he begins to understand the concepts of responsibility and accountability and realizes that his actions have consequences, and he begins to see things a bit differently. It is evident that he becomes more mature, which would mean that he is most likely a teenager near the end of the novel as well as in the sequel (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn). Thus, he's most likely around thirteen or fourteen years old at the end.

In conclusion, Tom Sawyer and his friends are children at the beginning of the story and are either teenagers or are close to teenagerhood at the end.

How old is Tom Sawyer?

Great question!

At the beginning of the story we definitely see Tom behaving almost bratty, and quite childishly. However, throughout many experiences in the story, we certainly can see a change in him which induces one to believe that he must have begun his transformation toward maturity.

While at the start he was misbehaved, towards the middle and end of his adventures we see how Tom starts changing his ways a little bit: He starts getting interested in Becky, he becomes curious about Huck's life of freedom, and begins to see difference between right and wrong.

However, he still retains the basic qualities of childhood such as his fears, his worries, his tendency for mischief, and his adventurous nature. Taking all this into consideration, we could safely assume that Tom was in the transition from childhood to adolescence, and that in the beginning of the story he may have been around 10 or 11 and by the end he is about to become a teenager. The story does not say a specific age.