The Improbable Tales of Baskerville Hall

Ali Standish's The Improbable Tales of Baskerville Hall is a mystery adventure for 10 year olds about Arthur Conan Doyle as a boy and a school that's much stranger than it first looks.

What happens

Arthur is a boy who's almost never wrong. He notices things. The butcher's tired eyes. A woman's shallow breathing a second before she faints in the street. He's also the only boy in a crowded Edinburgh home where the money has run out, and he's decided to leave school and find work.

Then a letter lands on the doorstep at dawn. Arthur has been given a place at Baskerville Hall. It's a hidden school that only takes the finest young minds, and it will pay for everything. Term starts tomorrow.

He isn't collected by a coach. An airship swoops down to a ruined chapel on a hilltop, and its gruff captain hands Arthur the wheel and goes below for a nap. (His first lesson turns out to be how to steer a balloon full of hydrogen away from a thunderstorm!)

The school is every bit as odd as that journey promises. A dodo waddles across the landing field. The deputy head dresses entirely in yellow and keeps an enormous wolf called Toby. A hooded rider watches Arthur from the trees. He soon makes a friend in Irene, a sharp girl just off the boat from America.

It's a lot of fun for anyone who knows Sherlock Holmes. Arthur keeps spotting three small clues and putting them together, and grown-ups will smile at a staff list with a Dr Watson and a Mrs Hudson on it. Your reader doesn't need to know any of that though. It works perfectly well as a secret-school adventure all on its own.

There's a gentle, sad thread at home too. Arthur's pa is unwell in his mind and spends his days shut away in his study, and the family make a small cut of mutton stretch between seven. It's handled kindly, and it makes Arthur's big chance feel like it really matters.

If your reader loves a clever hero, a hidden school and a mystery that keeps getting bigger, this is a great pick.

What to read next

For another bright child whisked off to a very unusual school, try Rosie Frost and the Falcon Queen. Rosie is packed off by helicopter to Bloodstone Island, where the corridors are carved with animals and the other pupils aren't all pleased to see a scholarship girl.