How many great books have been adapted over the years into films or series only to fall flat in so many ways? I can’t even count. And children’s books? Oh, that’s never a great idea.

The first two movies that come to mind when I think of bad children’s book adaptations are Eragon and Percy Jackson.

Eragon isn’t terrible…actually, but it’s nowhere near the par of the actual book and it doesn’t stay fully faithful to the source material. Eragon in the movie is seventeen, blond, and blue-eyed while in the book he was fourteen, dark-haired and brown-eyed. Arya, in the movies, is a red-haired dame but in the books she had dark hair. And there are plenty of other changes but most importantly, narratively, the film just isn’t as good as it could be, hence the reason there was never a sequel.

And Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief is just despicable. Absolutely horrendous! I haven’t even dared to watch the second film they made because it’s too upsetting all around.

All in all, children’s adaptations usually end up becoming something you never want to watch again. So when I learned that Disney had adapted one of my favorite books of all time–The Mysterious Benedict’s Society–I was skeptical. At first I thought it was going to be a two-hour movie which I felt would be a mistake. I soon discovered that no, it was actually an eight-episode, nearly eight-hour series that turned out to be the one of the smartest, best-written series of the year!