Interactive Historical Fiction e-books
The Royal Dirk by John and Patricia Beatty
Selected by the Southern California Council on Children’s and Young People’s Literature as an Award Book
Young Alan Macrae turned, unbelieving, to look at the stranger who had been tending this brother. By the light of the fire in the cave he saw a tall, weary-looking figure. “I am Charles Stuart,” the man told him. Bonnie Prince Charlie - in a hillside cave above his own Scottish glen! Alan fell to his knees.
The Prince asked Alan to lead him and his men westward across the hills, to help them escape from the English armies who had again defeated the brave Scots. Before they set out Prince Charlie took a small silver dirk from the cuff of his coat and handed it to Alan. “A remembrance from me.”
Guiding the Prince to safety was only the first of many unexpected and sometimes terrifying events that led Alan Macrae far from home. Across the Scottish and English countryside and finally to London, he associated with criminals and royalty, noblemen and spies. For readers age 12 and older.
“... young Alan Macrae is a manly sort of boy who risked his kilt and his neck to help restore the Stuarts. It’s a continuous adventure that takes him from Scotland to London and back.
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“For loyally helping Bonnie Prince Charlie to flee the Scottish Highlands, young Alan Macrae is rewarded with the Prince’s own garnet-studded silver dagger – the royal dirk. With it Alan hastens to exciting adventures in the atmosphere of mid-eighteenth-century Britain, authentically reproduced here by John and Patricia Beatty. This is a romance – and a splendid one.”
