“Are you a gifted child looking for special opportunities?”
So reads an ad in the local newspaper. Dozens of children and are put through a series of increasingly strange and difficult tests, which you the reader get to take along with them. Only four children—two boys and two girls—succeed. Their names and talents?
Reynard Muldoon: intelligent, a natural leader, and able to quickly figure out puzzles and word games.
George “Sticky” Washington: Also intelligent, with the ability to have anything he reads “stick” in his mind.
Kate Weatherall: Strong, with a mind for mechanical solutions to difficult situations, and a bucket that contains everything she needs to accomplish her goals.
Constance Contraire: Stubborn. So, so, stubborn. Also has a neat ability to invent really insulting rhymes. And did I mention she’s stubborn and will never do as she’s told?
Their challenge: a secret mission that only the most intelligent and inventive children could complete, given to them by the mysterious yet kindly Mr. Benedict and his associates; Number Two, Rhonda Kazembe, and the amnesiac master of disguise Milligan. To accomplish it, they will have to go undercover at the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened, where the only rule is that there are no rules. If they fail, they run the risk of letting the world by taking over and controlled by the mysterious yet evil Mr. Curtain. (Two “mysterious yet” people; is this a coincidence?) You can also solve the puzzles along with the children as they go along their adventures. (A knowledge of Morse Code would be helpful.)
To be honest, the best way to sum up my feelings on this book is:
I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it. I never wanted to DNF it, but I can’t say I rushed to finish it. It just existed, there in my life and on my bedside table. The writing was okay, the jokes were sometimes funny, sometimes too groan-worthy cute for words; the characters were your standard well-written children’s chapter book stock characters. I can muster up no greater feelings than it was okay, even harmless. Also, I rounded up my rating; I would probably put this at more of a 3.5 stars out of 5.
I will say Stewart succeeded in writing children as neither moron nor overly twee things that you just want to drop kick. This was a reasonably harmless book; the writing had some wit and humor behind it, the puns were not too groan-worthy. Yes, some things are bordering a little close to too cute (I am looking at you, Jackson and Jillson, and being knocked down the hill by a pail of water. As well as Connie Contraire, the precocious yet stubborn and truly eloquent toddler, why Milligan is called Milligan, and the Island of evil operations Nomansan Island and its leader, Ledroptha Curtain.) So Connie’s special talent is her stubbornness, or it is that she’s an eloquent toddler with a toddler’s natural disposition?
Boy do things go quickly though; it seems like the entire book took course over maybe two weeks, and I may be overestimating that timeframe by a few days. Glad we went for the old “identical yet opposite in every way personality-wise evil twin” trope; the shared narcolepsy (even if the triggers were opposites as well) was a nice touch.
Hopefully some questions will be answered in later books, like if Number Two has a name (though they may have mentioned it in the prequel The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict, which for some reason is recommended to be read after the main series.) Glad all the children had parents (biological or otherwise) by book’s end. Though if I was Sticky, I’m not too sure I would have gone back. I had to laugh about Kate running away from home to join the circus, and then running away from the circus to go back home. Reynie was okay as a main character; I am glad he is realistically portrayed to have doubts, but it did start to get old towards the end. In fact, one thing I will say I have a strong opinion on was that all the children’s tics started to get old towards the end; Reynie and his doubts, Connie and her rhyming stubbornness, Kate and her near-OCD need to unpack and re-pack her bucket of tools every time she used it (and she used it a lot), Sticky and his cleaning his glasses; I was waiting for his to either snap the frames or polish right through the lenses.
Seeing as I own the rest of the series (I think; I may be missing one book) I’ll finish it up. I may have been meh, but not meh enough not to finish. May I say I don’t know if it’s that much of a compliment to compare this author to Lemony Snicket (this series has been called an unGothic Series of Unfortunate Events), Roald Dahl, or J.K. Rowling; you are talking about three truly problematic authors there. The 10th Anniversary Edition apparently includes an interview with the author, additional puzzles, a small biography of each main protagonist, and a “which character are you most like?” quiz.
