Robert Michael Ballantyne was one of the most popular adventure story writers during Victoria's reign. He strongly believed that boys should grow up taking risks and his hero, Martin Rattler, certainly has a thrilling time in this tale.Aunt Dorothy Grumbit thinks him a bad boy but Martin possesses all the manly virtues that one expects from a Ballantyne hero and the story has all the traditional elements of a rollicking yarn: jolly jack tars, pirates, shipwreck, travel up the Amazon, diamond mines and capture by savage tribes, all set against an enlightening description of the wildlife, flowers and fauna of the rainforests of Brazil.What more could an imaginative child want in a story? Ballantyne was a vigorous speaker against slavery and strews his plot with enough clues to suggest why he supported the Wilberforce campaign so there is plenty of food for thought in the narrative as well.