The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey

The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey by Trenton Lee Stewart is a puzzle-packed adventure for 9 year olds that brings four very unusual friends back together, a year after they first met.

What happens

It's the second book about the Society and it leans on the first, so if your reader hasn't met these children yet, start with The Mysterious Benedict Society itself.

Reynie has spent six months apart from his friends, learning every letter they've sent him off by heart. Now he's walking up a dusty lane to Kate Wetherall's farm, and the first thing he sees is a goat shutting a gate behind itself.

Kate has been busy. She's training a peregrine falcon called Madge (full name Her Majesty the Queen). Her chickens pull a tiny wagon of grain to their own henhouse. And there's Moocho Brazos, an old friend from her circus days, who carries a tub of apples like it's a bowl of cherries and bakes six apple pies in a flowery apron.

Then Sticky arrives, and the three of them can hardly wait to get away from the grown-ups and talk. Mr Benedict has planned a big surprise for the anniversary of their first meeting. The grown-ups seem to know what it is. The children don't.

What nobody knows is that a telegram is racing to the farm. It says the children must not come, because it's too dangerous. And it arrives a few minutes after they've driven off.

Reading it feels like catching up with old friends. Reynie notices everything, Kate never stops moving, and Sticky is still very easily hurt. (He's written a five-page account of their adventure, and it is very, very dull, and he knows it.) Who wouldn't want to be in on their jokes?

One thing to flag. Kate is teaching herself an escape artist's trick of swallowing something and bringing it back up, without the string she's supposed to use. She does tell Reynie it isn't safe and that he mustn't try it. Even so, a child who likes to copy things might need a quick word.

What to read next

If they'd like another young investigator who keeps their eyes wide open, try Half Moon Investigations. Fletcher Moon is twelve, has a detective's badge he earned online, and knows which teachers stop for a burger on the way to school.