By Trenton Lee Stewart
Four gifted children answer a baffling newspaper ad, pass a run of strange tests, and go undercover at a sinister school to stop a mind-control plot.
An ad in the paper asks whether you're a gifted child looking for special opportunities. The children who show up have to pass a run of very odd puzzle-tests, and only four get through: Reynie, a natural problem-solver; Sticky, who remembers everything he reads; tiny, stubborn Constance; and Kate, who can build or climb her way out of anything. A man named Mr. Benedict sends the four of them undercover into a boarding school run by his own villainous twin, Mr. Curtain, who is slipping hidden messages into people's heads to seize control of their minds. He's decided only children can get close enough to stop it.
This is a long one, and it doesn't hide it — 485 pages, proper chapters. What it gives back is the thing a certain reader can't get enough of: clever children quietly outsmarting a dangerous grown-up. Mr. Curtain isn't a cartoon villain, he's calm and cold, which makes the tension feel more real than a funny, grotesque baddie does. A confident reader who's ready for a bigger book, and who loves brains beating brawn, will vanish into this one and then straight into the rest of the series.