by Trenton Lee Stewart
2007
In this 480-page children’s adventure thriller,
the titular Mr. Benedict puts out an ad calling for gifted children to take a
special opportunity. Reynie Muldoon
answers, and discovers, after some bizarre problem-solving tests, he is member
of a team that may save the world. With
Kate, a circus performer who carries a utility bucket, Sticky, a boy with a
photographic memory, and the tiny, petulant Constance, he enters a forbidding
school known as the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened, where a cryptic
man named Mr. Curtain is using children’s thoughts to bend the world’s
population to his will.
It’s all far
more exciting and thrilling than the labored description above can convey. This is a rich, wonderful book, with logic
games and messages of love and belonging, all things designed to tug at the
heart of the typical reader: the gifted child who sees himself as an outcast
already and yearns for adventure. I was
utterly blindsided by all the twists and turns, I must admit, even the one
involving Mr. Curtain at the end and the delightfully silly one involving
Constance. This is really a phenomenal
work, packed with humor and adventure and fun; I can’t imagine why it didn’t
win the Newbury.
four stars
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