Silver: Return to Treasure Island

Narrator David Tennant displays a flare for creating accents and unique voices in this sequel to the Stevenson classic from poet laureate Motion. This time out, it’s the son of Jim Hawkins who tells a swashbuckling tale of pirates and treasure that starts when a woman claiming to be Long John Silver’s daughter visits his father’s inn. Motion’s prose is replete with flowing descriptive passages, and this gives Tennant ample opportunity to bring to life the book’s lovely imagery, as in the following portrait of Silver’s home: “For rather than being made of bricks and mortar, the walls were comprised of planks, spars, branches, roots, pieces of barrel and every other sort of wooden material the river happened to have carried within reach.” A Crown hardcover. (Aug.)