Kidnapped
Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886.
Before you read: A kidnapping, fights, and a political feud in 18th-century Scotland. Older children.
David Balfour goes to claim an inheritance and is sold onto a ship by his uncle. After a wreck he travels across the Highlands with Alan Breck Stewart, a Jacobite who is quick with a sword and with an argument. Stevenson based pieces of the plot on real Scottish history and then wrote a chase story. David is trying to be lawful. Alan is trying to stay alive and proud. The friendship is the engine, and it is not smooth.
Public-domain text.