I initially bought the unabridged edition of "Kidnapped" illustrated by Wyeth, because my siblings and I shared such a volume growing up. I found myself looking forward to storytime with great eagerness as my six-year-old son and I became engrossed in Stevenson's colorful tale of adventure and friendship. (My son, hanging on every word, even those he did not understand, likened the duo of Alan Breck Stuart and David Balfour to Hans Solo and Luke Skywalker.)
After reading the entire unabridged book in two weeks, I bought the audio book for a long car ride. The whole family loved it. I do not think my two and four year old girls really followed any part of the story, but narrator David Rintoul's lyrical accent seemed to divert and please them, while his well-balanced narration and dialogue thoroughly drew the rest of us into the story. Without becoming completely unintelligeable, Rintoul delivers the lines of Highlanders and Lowlanders distinctly, authentically, with enough emotion to create a sense of drama, but sufficient forward momentum to maintain a lively pace. I highly recommend this audio-book for any readers of the text who found Stevenson's renderings of the dialogue difficult, or who struggled with some of the book's archaic vocabulary or useage.
The praise due to the audio-book having been given, I must add my opinion, which is that there is no equal to reading the unabridged original of this book; Robert Louis Stevenson enriched the corpus of all, not just juvenile, literature when he wrote this coming-of-age classic. His artistry with language enabled him to invoke unforgettable settings, craft witty and thoughtful dialogue of a genuine flavor, and construct a story which, to its end, leads the reader lock-step with its hero to an appreciation of Scotland's particular historic difficulties, and, more importantly, of what it means to be a decent human being.