The Mysterious Benedict Society

Today, I bring you one of the greatest series of books that I've had the pleasure to encounter since reading Harry Potter.  I originally found the first in the series, and quickly discovered that it continued for two more novels, and included a prequel written after the fact.  I was so enamored with the first book that I found all four of them at the library and devoured them betwixt teenage angst and crappity crap crap.  This series really kept me going.  I mostly look for the transcendentals in the books that I read, and they've been sorely lacking in the material I've had to endure lately.  The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart has been a shining beacon of light in a world obsessed with darkness and misery.  They seriously need to consider making this into a movie.

The format for this post is going to be a bit different than usual.  I'll put the back cover summary and my initial reaction to each book first, and then continue on in a general fashion from there.

The Mysterious Benedict Society
485 pages

Back cover reads: ”Are you a gifted child looking for special opportunities?”  When this peculiar ad appears in the newspaper, dozens of children enroll to take a series of mysterious, mind-bending tests.  (And you, dear reader, can test your wits right alongside them.)  But in the end just four very special children will succeed.  Their challenge: to go on a secret mission that only the most intelligent and resourceful children could complete.  With their newfound friendship at stake, will they be able to pass the most important test of all?  Welcome to the Mysterious Benedict Society.

My Initial Reaction (Spoiler Alert!)
This book is fabulous.  It's about these super smart kids who are really crafty.  They think outside of the box.  They're invited to take a series of tests by a mysterious company.  Our protagonist's name is Reynie Muldoon (it's written 3rd person from his pov), but he's paired up with 3 other kids: Kate Weatherall, George "Sticky" Washington, and Constance Contraire.  Each is about 10-12 years old, except for Constance, who's age difference is in stark contrast to the other three.  The thing that won me over about this book was the initial "test" that Reynie takes and his reaction to it.  There is a question about whether or not he likes or watches television.  He decides to answer truthfully that he does not watch or like television much, and it's better to tell the truth than to go with what other people want.  I instantly loved the book.  The storyline is a great page turner in this first installment.  The kids are undercover spies for Mr. Benedict.  They end up at an institution for children run by Benedict's brother, who is trying to control the world by broadcasting subliminal messages via television.  I really love how it is so anti-television and so pro-book and intelligence.  Anyways.  The kids end up saving the day and it all ends happily.  The first book could stand on its own.  It is well written, has excellent vocabulary, word-play, and it makes you want to be smart!  Lee also focuses on developing each of the characters: their personalities, their gifts, and how they work together as a team by being uniquely themselves.  I also have a sneaking suspicion that each character represents one of the four temperaments: Reynie= Melancholic, Kate= Sanguine, Sticky=Phlegmatic, and Constance=Choleric, and having an equal balance of all four is what's best!  The search for TRUTH, the quest for knowledge, and the overwhelming urge to do what is right and GOOD in this book are just amazing and BEAUTIFUL.

The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey

440 pages

Back cover reads:  -Children you must not come STOP Dangerous- The Mysterious Benedict Society is back with a new mission: a mind-bending international scavenger hunt designed to test their individual talents.  As they search for all the clues and riddles Mr. Benedict has hidden for them, Reynie, Sticky, Kate, and Constance face an unexpected challenge that will reinforce the reasons they were brought together in the first place and require them to fight for the very namesake that united them.



My Initial Reaction:
First of all, the book came to me like this, so you know it's well loved:

The book is as well written as the first novel, but it does drag on a little bit.  The Mysterious Benedict Society meets up at Kate's house, where a surprise is waiting for them.  They're told that they're going on a secret and mysterious journey under Mr. Benedict's direction.  Well, that doesn't happen, and he ends up getting captured again by his brother, Ledroptha Curtain.  The kids venture out on a quest by themselves to save the day.  It is a bit of a slower read than the first book.  The action starts to really pick up around page 300.  It's just as charming as the first novel, and Lee does an excellent job developing his characters even more.  They are stunning in their own humanity: each has his or her own gifts, but they start comparing themselves to one another, forgetting that their gifts matter just as much to the team.  These books are just inundated with virtue and overcoming the human condition.  They teach the reader that, yes, it's awful when evil/bad things happen, but good may come out of the situation if we just take the time to look at it that way.  The characters go through very real situations, and we experience the emotional turmoil that they do.  Each of them overcomes the challenges in very valiant (and different) ways.  The book ends on a really hopeful note and makes the reader look forward to the final installment.

The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilema
440 pages

Back cover reads:  By the time they had reached the balmy third floor and filed into the appropriate hallway, Constance's steps had grown noticeably slower and oddly deliberate, as if she were trudging through deep snow.  It was a perfectly familiar hallway, with familiar bookshelves lining the walls and several familiar doorways--the holding rooms on the left, the chamber door on the right-- and the chamber guards were familiar, too.  Yet with every step Constance took, the stranger and creepier everything seemed; even the light had a harsh and sinister cast.  Her spirits, so high before, had now plunged equally low, for the truth had begun to sing kin: She had an appointment with the Whisperer.

Initial reaction:  Excellent conclusion to an amazing trilogy.  This one does not drag, it keeps moving.  The kids encounter similar trials as in the first two novels, but now they're a little older, more experienced, and know how to work and value approaching things as a team.  The vocabulary is absolutely stunning in this one.



This series also has a prequel, but I'd like to review that separately next week.  I'm about half way into it, and I think it can stand on its own.

Onward to the review!

Promote Virtue?  Indubitably

Transcendentals? Yes, a thousand times yes!

Overcome human condition?  Yes, each kid overcomes certain tendencies (anger, weakness, selfishness, etc) for the greater good.

Attitude toward Catholicism?  Not applicable, but there's a riddle about the "monk building."

Paganry?  Nope!

Swearing?  Nope!

Violence?  Yes.  There are fights, but they're more of the swashbuckling type.  Nothing gets gory at all.

Appropriate age? 5th grade+  It is kind of a slow read.  It might have been faster if I hadn't been reading all the other things at the same time.  The whole series (including prequel) took me about a month and a half.  If I just focused on these, though, I'd probably take me about 2-3 weeks.

Writing Style:  I'm blown away by Lee's style.  His vocabulary is absolutely resplendent, and it just gets better and more elevated with each book.  His writing is adventuresome and page-turnnig without being redundant.  We really get into the heads of the characters and get to know who they are.  It's great to see the internal struggles of the four protagonists; it makes the reader relate to them.   I want to read everything by Trenton Lee Stewart!  He has a great way of getting kids to love books and the truth by sharing his love of them.

Great words:  Too many to count, but sesquipedalian, cacophony, meticulous, and quibble, just to name a few.  Puns, cleverness, word-nerddom, and riddles galore!

Some more general thoughts:

Being the Catholic nerd that I am who LOVES the St. Benedict Medal,

I had an inkling that Trenton Lee Stewart might be Catholic.  His profile is pretty inconclusive.  He went to a Methodist college, and it says nothing else about his upbringing.  However, one of the first things that he ever wrote is titled The Black Madonna Shrine and Grotto and other stories, which is available online for free here.  I have yet to read it, so I can't say either way, but his work is just so good and virtuous that I would love it even more if he is Catholic!

So, I’m 34 pages into The Perilous Journey book, and this little nugget happens:

“The fact that Sticky had briefly had a girlfriend, for instance, until she broke up with him for remarking upon her pulchritude. (“She didn’t believe me when I told her it meant ‘beauty,’” Sticky said.  Kate shook her head.  “It’s always best to stick to small words.  If you’d said that to me, I’d have punched you.”)”

Some more excellent character development here:

“Kate looked at him cockeyed.  “Are you kidding?  These guys are monsters!  If that one fell into the water (and drowned) it would serve him right!”

“You might think you mean that,” said Milligan.  “But you’d feel differently if it were to happen and you were responsible.  We’re not like them, Kate.  That’s the entire point of trying to stop them.  […]  I assure you.  I don’t  ‘just let them get away.’  But neither do I risk killing someone—not even a Ten Man—if I can think of a better option” (255).

“You mean….?” Said the guard, his eyes widening.  “You mean if we let them have this bunch”—he waved his hand to indicate Mr. Benedict, Number Two, and the children—“they’ll leave the rest of us alone?”

The children caught their breath.  Mr. Benedict raised an eyebrow.

Captain Noland spun on the guard, fixing him with a steely gaze.  “On this ship,” he said through clenched teeth, “we do not sacrifice the innocent to save our own skins” (420-21).

“Kate was in perfect position.  It would be so easy to stop them.  A well-placed throw---and Kate was nothing if not a good shot—and the calculator (bomb) would land directly in the Salamander’s path.  The explosion would wreck it.  Sure, it might kill the wicked men inside, but those men had had no qualms about such matters when they’d stuck the explosive on the security hold door, had they?  If anyone deserved to be sent sky-high with their own evil contraption, it was these men, and no doubt about it.

Kate saw Garrotte flick his wrist.  She leaped to the left—a razor-sharp pencil whistled past her shoulder.  You just made it even easier, she thought, cocking her arm to throw.  The men in the Salamander, powerless to do anything else, bent down and shielded their heads with their arms.  They were sitting ducks.  This would be the easiest thing in the world…

Except that Milligan was right.

Kat was not like Mr. Curtain and his nasty associates.  Not at all.  Back on that rooftop in Thernbaakagen Milligan had told her as much, and she saw now what he had meant.  Seeing those men there, helpless to stop her from doing what they themselves would never hesitate to do, Kate realized—with a certain degree of disappointment but also a degree of pride—that she could never do it, could never do something that would make her more like her enemy and less like her father.  And so, instead of throwing the calculator into the Salamander’s path, she flung it out over the bay, where it splashed into the water” (423-24).

“Still, we have reasons to be encouraged. […]  Aren’t they a fine example of how even scurrilous behavior may lead to some good, if only we’re clever enough to take advantage?”

After some hesitation, the children said they supposed this was true.

“And I realize there’s no shortage of wickedness in the world,” said Mr. Benedict, with a significant look at Reynie, “but is it not heartening to know that so many are willing to fight for the good?  Think of that young librarian, Sophie, who made certain you escaped.  Think of S.Q., who risked my brother’s wrath to make me more comfortable.  Think of Captain Noland, and Joe Shooter, and all the others—even strangers—who were prepared to sacrifice their safety, perhaps even their lives, on our behalf.  That’s something, is it not?”

None of the children could argue with this, not even Constance, who could argue with anything.  It was something, after all” (439-440).

This series is virtuous, adventurous, shows real internal struggle, it is pro-life, pro-book, and just OUTSTANDING.  I can't wait to read more by this guy!

This one wins the EXTRA LARGE WORD NERD SEAL OF APPROVAL.  It is SPEC.TAC.U.LAR., and I can't wait to read it to my kids someday.  Aloud.