The Mysterious Benedict Society
“Don’t judge the book by it’s cover (or title)” turns out to be very good advice here. I wouldn’t have grabbed The Mysterious Benedict Society off the bookshelf by looking at it. I happened upon this book by browsing the ‘best sellers’ at Amazon.com. I’m so glad I found it (I have found so many good books this way). Here is a unique and excellent idea for a kids book: Child geniuses team up to battle evil media messages.
The Mysterious Benedict Society is a bestselling children’s novel written by Trenton Lee Stewart and illustrated by Carson Ellis, first published in 2007. This year it was awarded the 2008 E.B. White Read Aloud Award for Older Readers. That is funny because that is how we read it, ‘Aloud’ to our children.
Our family just finished reading the book and we all enjoyed it. I love finding great children’s books that are a decent length (this one was 485 pages). There is nothing like finding a great book that is REALLY long! All the longer to enjoy it. This book had a lot of great detail, and you really get to know the characters.
Click here to read an article about this book at Publishers Weekly. There is another great article about this book here.
Four children, Reynard “Reynie” Muldoon, George “Sticky” Washington, Kate “The Great Kate Weather Machine” Wetherall, and Constance Contraire, pass a series of tests advertised in the newspaper. After passing the mind-bending tests, the four children meet Mr. Nicholas Benedict, a man trying to stop something known as “The Thing to Come”. Mr. Benedict sends them to The Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened (LIVE), where they meet Ledroptha Curtain, a man trying to take over the world using subliminal messages.
The group finds out that they must obtain the high rank of Messengers to get closer to Mr. Curtain. Only Reynie and Sticky manage to become Messengers. They learn that Mr. Curtain is sending his messages using a machine he calls the Whisperer. The children carefully spy on Mr. Curtain, finally getting close enough to destroy the Whisperer. However, Mr. Curtain escapes. Mr. Benedict adopts Constance, Sticky finds his parents, Reynie is adopted by his old tutor, Miss Perumal, and Kate finds her father, or rather, he finds her.
official website
The next book in the series is already out: The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey
