The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart is a children’s novel about four gifted kids who essentially save the world. The story follows Reynie Muldoon, who is an orphan and living in an orphanage. Seen as an outcast because he is smarter than the others in the orphanage, his tutor sees an ad in the paper about a test for kids who feel as if they don’t fit in. Reynie takes this test, and is selected with three other students to be recruited by the bizarre Mr. Benedict. His goal is for these four children, who have varying skills in different areas, to go undercover at his evil twin’s boarding school. The evil twin, who goes by the name Mr. Curtain, is the principal of The Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened (L.I.V.E.), and he plans to take over the world by controlling minds one at a time. The four children, Reynie, Sticky, Kate, and Constance, pretend to be students at this school run by an evil man to try and stop him from taking over the world. They communicate with Mr. Benedict in sneaky ways, including morse code with flashlights and sneaking off of campus. 

This novel is an amazing story about four children who are extremely bright and use their brains for good, to save the world from an evil man who plans to take it over. It is extremely action-packed and full of themes that keep you coming back for more. This series has taught me so much about topics I would never usually ask about, and I think that it is such a great series to read.

• Anonymous