BookBright
ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSSeventeen-year-old David Balfour leaves his small Scottish village after his parents die, carrying a letter that sends him to the grand House of Shaws to find his uncle Ebenezer Balfour, a man he has never met. What David expects to be a new beginning quickly turns strange: his uncle lives like a miser in a crumbling ruin, refuses to answer simple questions, and one night sends David up a pitch-dark tower staircase that turns out to be unfinished, ending in a fatal drop. Before David can confront him and force the truth, he is tricked onto a ship called the Covenant bound for the American colonies, where men were sold into slavery. Set in the Scottish Highlands of 1751, Kidnapped follows David as he fights to survive at sea, escape the wilderness, and return to claim whatever it is his uncle has been hiding from him.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Kidnapped
SPOILERSEvery one of these has the same answer, and that is the point. In a real battle the question is read aloud with a dozen other books in play, and students have a few seconds to place it. Here is what a battle might ask about Kidnapped. Use them as a quiz, a trivia round, or BOTB practice.
Where in the book they come from
- Early in the book
In what book is a boy sent to climb an unfinished pitch black tower stair with no railing?
✓ Answer
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
Uncle Ebenezer sends David up the stair tower in the dark to fetch a chest, knowing the steps end abruptly over a deep drop. A flash of lightning saves David from stepping off into the void and reveals the murderous trap.
- First half
In what book does a boy guard a window with charged pistols while a swordsman holds the door?
✓ Answer
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
Alan posts David at the back of the round-house with the pistols while he defends the door with his sword. Together they fight off fifteen sailors who try to overpower them, in one of the most famous siege scenes in the book.
- First half
In what book does a castaway discover his island is only a tidal islet that empties twice a day?
✓ Answer
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
After nearly a hundred hours of suffering on Earraid, David finally understands when the returning fishers shout the word "tide." He runs across the isle and wades through a shrunken trickle, having starved beside an escape route the whole time.
- Second half
In what book does a man stand in the trees holding nothing but a fishing rod after a murder?
✓ Answer
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
Just inside the upper wood after the Appin Murder, David finds Alan Breck standing with a fishing rod. Alan uses it later as evidence of his innocence, pointing out that no one would set out to kill a man armed only with a rod.
- Second half
In what book does a hidden chief use a cliff's face as the chimney for his secret hut?
✓ Answer
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
Inside Cluny's Cage, the chief has cleverly used a projection of the cliff as his fireplace. The smoke rises against the dark face of the rock and matches its colour, so the hideout cannot be spotted from below by passing soldiers.
- Near the end
In what book does an angry boy draw his sword on his closest friend by starlight?
✓ Answer
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
After days of bitter silence, David provokes Alan past bearing and draws on him in the dark. Alan flings down his own sword crying "Na, na, I cannae," and David realizes he has nearly destroyed the one friendship that has kept him alive.
