Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Book Review: The Mysterious Benedict Society

The book I am reading is called The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart. It's about 4 kids who go on a flurry of adventures sort of led by Nicholas Benedict, an old guy who's narcoleptic.

The prompt I chose to answer was the one about choosing a character, or choosing two to analyze and stuff. Well, the characters I chose were Reynie and Sticky.

Reynie, he's sort of what you would call the 'puzzle guy' in the group of four. He's very friendly, smart, and is the only one who can handle Constance.

Sticky. Where does his nickname come from? Everything he reads, it sticks to his brain, and he is able to relay that information when needed. He's the 'brains' of the group of four.
"Well, you didn't know it was a puzzle, and I didn't know any of the answers, but we're both here now. We'd make a good team." (35).
The part that I quoted from already tells the future of the two characters together. They, along with the rest of their group, fit together perfectly when trying to solve the problem with Mr. Curtain, the book's evil villain. Reynie, with his puzzle solving skills, allows for him to see things more differently than other people, and Sticky, with his extensive knowledge, helps the group to learn some facts about something in order to learn more about it.

An example of how both their talents were used, was when the group went exploring around Nomansan Island, and discovered the drapeweed. Sticky, being the smart one that he is, identified the plant immediately, and called the plant somewhat safe. Reynie, on the other hand, was sort of being the self-proclaimed leader, as everyone was asking for his opinion on what to do about the plant. He had an 'uneasy feeling', but the group went to inspect it anyways.....

AND THEN...

The drapeweed SUCKS them all into this cavernous-like place that seemed like a tunnel.

BAM! A tunnel? At the Institute....hmmm,

Anyways, the relationship between Reynie and Sticky seems to be strong, not only because they're 11, and they're guys, and you get the point, but they work well together, with each other, and also their group.
 

4 comments:

  1. To me this seems like an interesting book, but i would not read it. haha.oh, and by the way, as i read this i imagined you screaming it! anyways, seems like some of the major themes in the book are leadership, cooperation and working together. I think that the fact that you talked about how Sticky and Reynie work together to accomplish something important in the story was talking in depth about them. yeahh..

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  2. I felt that you were mostly summarizing the book rather than analyzing it. The overall of the summary was great and interesting, but do stay on track with your prompt. Other than that, you could maybe give a quick description of the other children and characters that you will mention in your actual essay.

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  3. i really like the title of your blog. anyway i agree wih wendy. there was not much analysis going on and most of it was short summary. there may not be to much to say about the two characters now, but when you do your final book post you should tell more about those two characters and analize not summarize.

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  4. I agree with Kaila and Wendy when they say that there is not that much analysis happening and it was more of a summary but if that was what you were writing about then it's fine.

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