Treasure Island is beautifully written and quite gripping but gives our age group the challenge of nineteenth century prose, and is surprisingly violent.
Jim Hawkins lives with his parents in the Admiral Benbow. An aggressive new guest obviously has something to hide and on his death Jim and his mother discover a treasure map. The local magistrate Dr Livesey and Squire Trelawny arrange to go hunting for the treasure, taking Jim with them as cabin boy amongst the crew on the Hispaniola. The loose tongued Squire also takes on a one legged ship's cook John Silver who brings a large part of the new crew with him. And so the stage is set for one of the most famous adventures in children's literature. And a very bloody adventure it is too.
Treasure Island has several great strengths: the plot, which, at least once they set sail, is a real page turner; the relative reality of the adventure, which is at times stark and brutal and lets Jim really experience this adult world; and the character of Silver, as never was a man such a traitorous turncoat, nor such a smooth tongued villain, yet somehow, in his likable plausibility, the reader can't help but be slightly relieved that his final fate is not on the gallows.
Watch points:
Violence: this is a violent tale. Sword fights, knives, gun fights are all the order of the day. Jim is intimately involved, and has to kill as much as the men do. He is also pinned to the mast with a knife through his arm, and has to literally tear himself away. The historic setting lends distance however and somehow the 'classic' status will mean you're less likely to get complaints from parents. I feel it is suitable for the whole age group.
Death: again, lots of men, good and bad, innocent and guilty, die. There is also the shadow of the noose for the wrong doers. Human remains form part of one of the plot twists.
Peril: from the start Jim is frightened of the aggressive guest at the inn and his violent companions. Once on the ship there is mutiny afoot, on the island there is the fight to the death for the treasure. At one point Jim, having given his word not to run back to his friends, does the gentlemanly thing and keeps his word, though the reader must fear for his life at this point.
Religion: the religious beliefs of the characters, particularly the more superstitious aspects, are discussed at some length, and form part of the plot.
Anything else: great characters, all of them male. The only female character is Jim's mother who crys and faints a lot. Silver is a very positive physical role model as a disabled character. Having one leg never stops him! One character is mentally ill, having lived in isolation as he was abandoned by pirates some years before.
Overall: when I set this for a book group it was met with much groaning. I think the 'classic' label weighs it down in their minds. They all complained that the lengthy sentences and rather more formal English was unfamiliar and slowed them down, but most admitted that they found it got easier as they got into the book.
I think it was a shock for them, successful readers that they are, that there are aspects of reading that they still need to practice. I think, for these clever readers, that suddenly finding something difficult is good for them. Often the 'gifted and talented' never get the chance to fail at school but, for the very clever, failure is often the first stepping stone to cracking something very difficult, and handling set backs and seeing them as temporary is as important for this group as any other, yet they experience it less. Whilst it was no-one's favourite book in my group, they did seem to get a lot out of the experience.
For me, it stood out in its quality amongst the the many lighter offerings on today's bookshelves, and I adored it. John Silver is one the cleverest examples of charcterisation in any novel, for adult or child; the half mad Ben Gunn was also skillfully drawn.
Other reviews and useful sites:
It is reviewed on Reading Matters, and there is also a review of Treasure Island alongside various modern versions/sequels on the London Review of Books though you have to subscribe to read it all.
Your main port of call may well be the Robert Louis Stevenson site - maintained by academics, the RLS Website is a freely available online resource dedicated to the life and works of Robert Louis Stevenson and is a mine of information. Their schools' page is here.
And I may as well mention my own Robert Louis Stevenson shelf in my virtual bookshop.
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