When the boy tears through book after book, I sometimes follow after him. Treasure Island is such a well-known tale, but I’m not sure I’d ever read it before. Maybe it’s not the original buried treasure story, but this is rightly the best known. Action throughout, clear language without being childish, and the hero (and narrator, mostly) is an adolescent boy: Robert Louis Stevenson’s first novel set a high bar, and it’s a lightning read as an adult. (I’d forgotten Stevenson was the author of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, too.)