A coming-of-age mystery series created by Tope Babalola

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BENJAMIN OJO follows the titular Ben, a brilliant but lonely 13-year-old Nigerian Canadian with deduction and perception skills rivalling those of Sherlock Holmes. Lydia Park, the new girl at school, is an energetic and artistic Korean-Canadian student with an obsession with mystery novels. Though hesitant at first, Ben takes a chance on friendship and strikes up a detective partnership with Lydia, and the two are launched into their first big case when they must clear the name of Autumn Academy Middle School’s star athlete (and Ben’s former best friend) Jeremy Pitt after he’s framed for a mysterious and high-profile act of vandalism.

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As the detective duo dives deeper into the case, and many of Autumn Academy’s most prolific students are named suspects, Ben and Lydia soon realize the vandalism is just a drop in a much larger ocean of secrets that threaten to topple the school status quo, and as a result, there are plenty of students willing to do whatever it takes to stop the investigation in its tracks to keep their own secrets buried. As friends turn to foes and tensions climb to an all-time high, Ben and Lydia’s newfound friendship is tested as they learn that trusting each other will be just as important as trusting the evidence. And all the while, the detectives must navigate the ups and downs of an infinitely more impossible task: surviving junior high!

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