A Talent for Trouble

Natasha Farrant's A Talent for Trouble is a warm, funny boarding-school adventure for 10 year olds about a very quiet girl packed off to a castle in Scotland.

What happens

Alice is eleven, small and pale, and she'd much rather be writing stories than talking to anybody. Her mum died of an illness four years ago, and now the family home is sold. Before they drive away, Alice and her aunt dig up the white rosebush planted in her mum's memory and take it with them in a pot.

Then Aunt Patience puts her on the night train to Stormy Loch. It's a school in a castle where every pupil is meant to have a Talent, the students grow their own food and there are pigs. Her dad, Barney, an actor who's always away, promises he'll visit soon (Alice is sure that's what he said).

On the train she meets Jesse. He's shy, twelve, very fast and very good at orienteering, and he shares his picnic with her. It's a lovely start to a friendship. Then, the moment they arrive, he lets her down over a silly school race. And there's Fergus, a red-haired genius who sticks his foot out and trips her into a puddle for no reason at all.

What makes it such fun to read is the voice telling the story. It talks straight to you, like a tour guide showing you round ("We'll go inside now"), and it can't help dropping hints about what's coming. Before these three can call themselves friends, it says, there'll be betrayals, lies and a couple of near-death experiences.

The school is brilliantly odd. The headmaster has an eye patch and a kitten wriggling in his jacket pocket. The art teacher turns up in a bathing suit covered in blue clay. And on the radio, somebody's stolen a precious jade carving of a boy riding a dragon.

Alice's grief is handled gently and honestly, and the rosebush scene is very tender. If your reader has lost someone close, it might bring up big feelings, so it could be one to share.

If you've got a reader who loves boarding-school stories but wants more heart and a bit less hockey, this is a treat. Shy, bookish children in particular will find a lot of themselves in Alice.

What to read next

Alice's favourite book, the one she reads all the way to London in the car, is Journey to the River Sea. It's in the library too, and it's a lovely next step. Maia has lost her parents, and at her London school she's waiting for news about her future.