Book Review: The Mysterious Benedict Society

             


     The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

Reynie is a special kid. He is an orphan, but he’s always been special. So when he sees an ad in the newspaper looking for gifted children (which he thinks is silly; how many children read the newspaper?) he jumps at it.

The book automatically starts giving puzzles and clues to figure bits of the book out. He takes a series of tests where he meets three other children in the process that are gifted. Not in the same way he is, but gifted nonetheless. Kate, who is an orphan, Sticky who’s story will unfold later, and Constance who is annoying and stubborn.

The kids find that the person who conducted the tests is now asking them a very serious question. He says that there will be an Emergency soon, and the only way it can be stopped is by retaining more information about it. The evil man who is in charge of the Emergency has an institute for children(where he uses the kids to control the population(don’t worry, they explain it all in detail)) so the four kids go there to be spies. They report back to the man they work for, Mr. Benedict, with what they find.

Profanity?:

None J

Romance:

None.

Violence?:

Some fights break out.

Age?:

8+

My opinion?:

This book was amazing. And the really great thing is, even though I marked the age as 8+, I’m 14 and couldn’t put the book down. (I actually stole it from my little brother while he was reading it). I love this book a lot because it’s full of puzzles. I pride myself on being able to figure out puzzles in books really easily, but even some of the ones in this book stumped me. This book was amazing. I simply could not put it down. This is one of those books that I’m glad has books to follow it. J