I was at a secondhand book fair when I saw this and despite the fact that it’s been six years since I read The Mysterious Benedict Society, I remembered enjoying the first book enough to pick up the prequel. Plus, there’s something fitting about the fact that I found both books at second hand stores – one in Japan and one in Singapore.

The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict is the prequel to the Mysterious Benedict Society series and covers the childhood of Nicholas Benedict (founder of said society, if the repeated “Benedicts” did not tip you off). Nicholas Benedict is an orphan. Thankfully, or perhaps not, he’s extraordinarily bright. Apart from his eidetic memory, he’s able to combine all the information he gathers to derive extremely accurate conclusions. If he was in an anime, he’d be able to compete with Detective Conan. The only thing is, he suffers from a rare form of narcolepsy.

Sent to a new orphanage, Nicholas doesn’t expect things to be different. Instead, he finds himself making friends and on the hunt for a treasure that may allow him to break free.

It’s a bit hard to tell because I read The Mysterious Benedict Society a long time ago, but I think I enjoyed The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict just as much. To be honest, the mystery wasn’t the main draw, though it was the reason I picked up the book. Nope, my favourite part of the book were the characters. There’s Nicholas, who’s extremely smart but also very used to being bullied and hence very cynical about relationships. Seeing his friendship with John, another boy at the orphanage, blossom was extremely satisfying. I really enjoyed how the book managed to balance the swagger that Nicholas puts on with the loneliness that he feels, making the friendships that he develops all the more real.

And perhaps because this is aimed at younger kids, there isn’t any romance. There are friendships between Nicholas and another girl, but everything is kept platonic. I appreciated that because quite a few books, especially those aimed for a slightly older audience, seem to doubt the viability of friendships between people of different genders. It was refreshing to see that both friendships between boys and friendships between boys and girls forming the core of the book – I think it’s important younger readers see that you can form strong bonds with people of either gender.

I also appreciated the characterisation of the adults. Many of the adults at the orphanage started off on the more typical villainous sort of characters, but if you read on, there’s quite a lot of nuance. Apart from an adult character that comes into Nicholas’s life at a key moment in the book, [SLIGHT SPOILERS] the headmaster was shown to have a lot more depth than expected. Yes, he’s a penny-pincher who goes overboard in trying to save money but he’s not an inherently bad person and you can actually reason with him. He isn’t totally evil, as you might initially assume.

This was a really fun read and I’d recommend it to you if you like smart kids and strong friendships. It took me six years to find and read this. Hopefully now that I’m back in Singapore, it takes me much less time to find the second book in the series and read that.