The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I read Harry Potter, skipped Twilight, and haven’t tried The Hunger Games yet (although I might. Probably just go see the movie). What is it about kids books that we adults like so much? Maybe it’s because they’re easy to read. I’ll grant you that— The Mysterious Benedict Society is an easy read, although it’s also a younger book than Potter, ‘Light, or Games. No death, no sex, no graphic violence. Just four kids sent on a spy mission to help defeat an evil villain.
Trenton Lee Stewart does a good job of taking a few outcasts and bringing them together to illustrate some nice principles for kids to develop: loyalty, honesty, faith, friendship, perseverance, creativity, teamwork. And rather than a dogmatic approach to these ideals, he has his characters bend their own rules and deal with consequences, which I found rather refreshing.
I don’t know if I cared for the major plot point of the story, the evil villain’s plans and how he was accomplishing them—it had elements of sci-fi and fantasy, but without the science or magic of either. Someone smarter than me could probably show how mind-control machines are a symbol for something significant, but I missed it totally. And the book does drag in a few places.
But just a few. And other than shifting the point of view from his main character to others on a few occasions, I don’t have any other complaints. Stewart fills the story with all kinds of puzzles and secret little word-plays, which were fun to discover and I’m sure a smart 5th grader would enjoy them as well.
I’m all for parents reading the books their kids read, and I’m happy to say this is one the parents can get through quickly, and pass on to their children with confidence that there’s nothing in it they can’t handle, and quite a bit for them to love.