Treasure Island (1950) — the classic Disney version · Treasure Planet (2002) — Disney again, in space · Muppet Treasure Island (1996) — the gateway drug
For a younger family, Muppet Treasure Island first is a completely legitimate move; it's the on-ramp, and it keeps enough of the real plot to count. The book itself belongs to confident readers around grade 5 and up, and it earns its place: the danger is not pretend and the tension is real. Save the 1950 Disney film for after the book, when your kid can hear for themselves where every movie pirate they've ever seen came from.
Robert Newton's rolling West Country 'arr' as Long John Silver became the voice of every pirate since. It isn't in the book; Stevenson's Silver is smooth-spoken, which is scarier. Tell your kid this fact and watch them listen for it.
Jim is a teenager with a solar surfer, Silver is a cyborg cook, the island is a planet. The bones of the story survive surprisingly well, and it works as a gateway for a kid who won't touch an old book yet.
Tim Curry, songs, and a rat named Rizzo. It keeps more of the actual plot than you'd expect, which makes it a sneaky-good introduction for younger siblings.
Every film turns Jim into a character you watch. In the book Jim tells it himself, years later, still rattled. Fear told in the first person works differently than fear watched from a seat.
Blind Pew's stick tapping down the frozen road, the black spot, the sea-chest. The book spends three whole chapters building dread before anyone sails, and those chapters are why the story has never gone out of print.
Jim alone on the ship with Israel Hands climbing after him is the scene readers remember decades later, and Jim narrating his own terror is what makes it work.
The films have to decide whether Silver is a villain or a rogue with a heart. The book refuses to, all the way to the last page, and that undecidability is the greatest thing in it.
Three years marooned with all the treasure in the world, dreaming of toasted cheese. The films play him as comic relief; the book lets him be sad and funny at once.
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