Adapting a classic novel that used some Scottish idiom into modern English must have seemed like a good idea at the time but this simplification of the story probably does the reader and the writer a disservice. A child unable to cope with the language of Robert Louis Stevenson would be better served by reading something original at their comprehension level and waiting to experience the richness of the original fully. The adaptation is competent and exciting but it seems to me that few readers will explore the original if they have been given this pallid substitute first. ( )