Upon my college daughter’s recommendation, I bought and read The Mysterious Benedict Society (TMBS) and The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey by Trenton Lee Stewart. My child is studying to be an archaeologist and is one of the funniest, most creative people, and outside-the-box thinkers I know. I’ve never been disappointed when taking her up on any reading suggestion she’s ever made.

Despite her ADHD (and many doctors saying she would never read past a 6th grade level), she is an avid reader who is doing quite well with her studies, thank you very much. She's consumed everything Ray Bradbury offers, and has thoroughly enjoyed many classics like J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. She has always been especially taken with juvenile fiction - from the Harry Potter series and A Series of Unfortunate Events to Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials Trilogy and Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl Series.

This would explain her attraction to a story of four children of varying backgrounds, ages, insecurities, strengths, and talents.

Separately, the children of TMBS first embark on what initially appears to be nothing more than a placement test. Soon enough they find themselves on a harrowing adventure to save the people of the world from the bad guy’s plot to rob everyone of their memory and assume global control.

From the very beginning, there is no shortage of intrigue, mind-bending mystery, and excitement as the drama unfolds for our four young, modern-day, nerds-turned-sleuths. The emotional entanglements and moral dilemmas are decidedly not preachy and are instead handled, much to my delight, humorously and almost haphazardly.

Because the characters are so different from one another, it would be easy for any reader to find the one they most relate to and come away from the story with their own perspective of who did the most, the best, and was the coolest of all. A juvenile reading group, or even a couple of teen friends, would be left with much to discuss.