Book 13 in the Magic Tree House series (1998)
A novel by Mary Pope Osborne
In their first adventure as Master Librarians, Jack and Annie go to the city of Pompeii to bring back an ancient story that is in danger of being lost forever. Little do they know they are saving the myth of Hercules! But before they can find it, the town's volcano erupts in a mighty explosion. Just when things look hopeless, Jack and Annie get some unexpected help from a certain mythic hero - and the rest, as they say, is history.

Scotland has long had a romantic appeal which has tended to be focused on a few over-dramatized personalities or events, notably Mary Queen of Scots, Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Highland Clearances-the failures and the sad - though more positively, William Wallace and Robert the Bruce have also got in on the act, because of their heroism in resisting English aggression. This has had its own satisfaction, and has certainly been very good for the tourist industry. But, fuelled by the explosion of serious academic studies in the last half-century, there has grown up a keen desire for a better-informed and more satisfying understanding of the Scottish past-and not only in Scotland.