Books like The Mysterious Benedict Society
What should you read after Trenton Lee Stewart’s novel? It depends on what you loved most about it.
- Trenton Lee Stewart
- 2007
- Middle-grade mystery
What did you love about it?
Choosing one reorders everything below.
Best books to read after The Mysterious Benedict Society
Ranked overall. Pick what you loved above to re-rank them.
Best overall matchThe Westing Game
Ellen Raskin
Sixteen heirs, a will written as a puzzle, and clues the reader genuinely can piece together. The gold standard for children's books that respect a clever reader.
- Riddles the reader can solve too
- A benevolent eccentric adult
- Four kids with very different talents
- Large cast to keep straight
Best for the same authorThe Secret Keepers
Trenton Lee Stewart
Stewart working standalone: a boy, an old watch that does something it should not, and a city under quiet criminal control. Same puzzles, same decency.
- Riddles the reader can solve too
- Cleverness beating strength
- Long but completely breezy
- One protagonist, not a team
Great matchThe Name of this Book is Secret
Pseudonymous Bosch
A narrator who insists you stop reading, two kids who ignore him, and a conspiracy with a strong smell about it. Playful in a way Benedict readers take to instantly.
- Riddles the reader can solve too
- Mind control hidden in plain sight
- The gimmick tires over a series
Best for the puzzle-solvingEscape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library
Chris Grabenstein
Twelve children locked in a library overnight by a games designer, with the way out hidden in the shelves. Pure puzzle pleasure, front to back.
- Riddles the reader can solve too
- A benevolent eccentric adult
- Cleverness beating strength
- No real menace anywhere
Great matchThe Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place
Maryrose Wood
Three children raised by wolves, one very young governess, and a household with something to hide. Funny, arch, and warmer than its premise sounds.
- Four kids with very different talents
- A benevolent eccentric adult
- Going undercover at a sinister school
- Series resolves very slowly
Great matchThe Gollywhopper Games
Jody Feldman
A competition of increasingly ingenious challenges inside a toy company, with a boy who needs to win. Straight competitive puzzling.
- Riddles the reader can solve too
- Cleverness beating strength
- No larger conspiracy
Best for the actual puzzlesThe Puzzling World of Winston Breen
Eric Berlin
A boy who thinks in puzzles, with real ones printed in the book for you to work through. As close as this shelf gets to a book you solve rather than read.
- Riddles the reader can solve too
- Long but completely breezy
- The story is slender
Worth a look — with a warningThe Secret of the Old Clock
Carolyn Keene
The original capable child detective, still perfectly readable. Historically important, and showing its age in every other paragraph.
- Cleverness beating strength
- Long but completely breezy
- Very dated in tone
Worth a look — with a warningThe Boxcar Children
Gertrude Chandler Warner
Four siblings looking after themselves with nothing but ingenuity. The self-sufficiency Benedict readers love, aimed at somewhat younger children.
- Four kids with very different talents
- Cleverness beating strength
- Reading level well below Benedict
Great matchThe Secret of Platform 13
Eva Ibbotson
A hidden doorway, a rescue mission, and a team of mismatched misfits carrying it out. Ibbotson is funnier than Stewart and just as kind.
- Four kids with very different talents
- Long but completely breezy
- Fantasy rather than puzzles
Best for the Raskin brainThe Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel)
Ellen Raskin
Raskin before The Westing Game: wordplay, anagrams and a mystery assembled out of jokes. Odd, clever, and exactly the humour Stewart inherited.
- Riddles the reader can solve too
- A benevolent eccentric adult
- Structure is genuinely peculiar
What should you read after The Mysterious Benedict Society?
The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart works on several levels at once, and which book you should read next depends on which of those levels got you. For most readers the closest match is The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin — sixteen heirs, a will written as a puzzle, and clues the reader genuinely can piece together. The gold standard for children's books that respect a clever reader.
If what stayed with you was riddles the reader can solve too, read The Secret Keepers by Trenton Lee Stewart instead: stewart working standalone: a boy, an old watch that does something it should not, and a city under quiet criminal control. Same puzzles, same decency. The Name of this Book is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch is the other strong option — a narrator who insists you stop reading, two kids who ignore him, and a conspiracy with a strong smell about it. Playful in a way Benedict readers take to instantly.
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