The Mysterious Benedict Society
Four children,
- Sticky,who remembers every thing he’s ever seen, read, or heard,
- Kate, who used to live at a circus, possesses amazing physical abilities and carries a red bucket filled with tools like: a spyglass, a Swiss army knife, and her flashlight,
- Reynie, an orphan with incredible intellect,
- and Constance, whose powers are to be discovered throughout the series,
read an ad in the newspaper requesting that all mysteriously gifted children go to the Monk Building. After being tested in several odd ways, they are taken to see Mr. Benedict, who gives them a mission to find out what Mr. Curtain, the owner of the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened (L.I.V.E.), is up to.
When they arrive, they discover that Mr. Curtain plans to use the children in the Institute to achieve world domination, and he will attempt to do so with a machine he invented, called the Whisperer. Mr. Curtain is taking no chances concerning the safety of his precious machine. He has it locked in a hidden room surrounded by every security system imaginable. The children have to find it, defeat the security systems, and destroy the Whisperer. The big question is: will they succeed or die trying?
I’d never heard of the mysterious benedict society when I sat started reading it, and after a few pages I was blown away. As I am personally an adult, the story brought be back to my childhood reading the hardy boys and nancy drew. I loved the concept of 4 kids trying to solve interesting mysteries. The really great thing about this book is that it is really a pretty unpredictable storyline, and the puzzles and problems that the 4 kids have to solve are intersting for the reader to try to take a crack at too.