A Talent for Trouble

September 15, 2019
At a ramshackle Scottish boarding school, three children begin a hair-raising adventure. Why must Alice's home, Cherry Grange, be sold? Ever since her mum died four years ago, Alice--a dark-haired, white 11-year-old--has been a shadow of her former self. Her beloved father is unreliable, and her aunt decides nothing will help Alice but a fresh start. So it's off to Stormy Loch Academy for Alice. It's an odd sort of place: full of Challenges, where students discover Talents, and actions have Consequences. (Both characters and narrator have a tendency to speak with capitalized significance.) More importantly, the building is a storybook castle, with forbidden towers and pigs to feed. Despite an extremely rough start, Alice comes to depend on two of her classmates. Jesse Okuyo is a tall, multiracial rule-follower, and Fergus Mackenzie is a rule-breaking white redhead and the bane of Jesse's existence. On the Great Orienteering Challenge, the three discover that Alice's mercurial father has entangled them in a dangerous adventure, complete with foreign criminals, shootings, and an island chase. The adventure is self-consciously--and delightfully--in the spirit of classic British school stories: Alice's favorite book is Eva Ibbotson's Amazon adventure, Journey to the River Sea (2001), and the foreshadowing narrative voice is markedly old school. Prose peppered with ellipses and dashes at times drags this otherwise-buoyant coming-of-age tale into languid meanders. Smashing: a romantic, ripping yarn set in the mobile-phone era. (Adventure. 10-12)

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November 1, 2019

Gr 4-6-It's been four years since Alice Mistlethwaite's mum died. Her father Barney is an unreliable struggling actor who disappears for long periods of time, leaving her Aunt Patience to sell their home in the English countryside and send Alice to Stormy Loch, a boarding school in Scotland. At Stormy Loch everyone has a Talent, ranging from art to running. They have Challenges starting with the First Day Challenge, and all actions have Consequences. Alice makes friends with Jesse, a rule follower and map reader who she meets on the train, and Fergus, a rule breaker who is dealing with family troubles of his own. The three work as a team for the Great Orienteering Challenge but stray off course when a mysterious message from Alice's father leads them into a dangerous mission involving international criminals and a chase on a remote island. While much of the story feels timeless, mentions of cell phones and computers make this a contemporary adventure. VERDICT Readers will enjoy accompanying Alice and her friends on this fast-paced adventure.-Sarah Polace, Cuyahoga Public Library System, OH

Copyright 2019 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 1, 2019
Grades 5-7 *Starred Review* Four years after her mother's death, Alice faces another wrenching change: her aunt Patience sells their idyllic English home, where the 11-year-old spends her days writing stories, and sends her niece to Stormy Loch, a Scottish boarding school that fosters independence and discovering one's talent. There Alice befriends two boys, Jesse and Fergus. While each of them is less than whole, they all become stronger during their sometimes-harrowing exploits. Alice repeatedly attempts to contact her distant, unreliable father, and in the final chapters, she and her friends secretly travel over land and sea to meet him on a remote Scottish island. Intermittently, the narrator pauses the storytelling to offer readers a different perspective (Aunt Patience's secret wish to help Alice live as passionately as she wrote ), a hint of what's to come ( at least two betrayals, and a few lies, and a couple of near-death experiences ), or a helpful warning ( Please never, ever try at home what Alice did next ). In this well-crafted chapter book, the early scenes on the overnight train to Scotland and in the idiosyncratic school are as riveting as the later adventures atop the castle and in the wild. A rewarding novel with distinctive settings, well-drawn characters, and a satisfying conclusion.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)