We are constantly reminded how terrible everything is going to be, and all the jokes are repetitions on the same dreary theme (I’m looking at you, jokes about Sunny biting things all the time and making nonsense sounds). The repetitive nature defining words is not the only repetitive nature of this narration. …occasionally their parents have them permission to take a rickety trolley – the word ‘rickety’, you probably know, here means ‘unsteady’ or ‘likely to collapse’ – alone to the seashore… But don’t do it in a way which is demeaning:

Yes, some of these words might need defining for younger children. When selecting a narrator, the author can select to talk up or down to his reader. But defining words constantly felt like I was being condescended to. I know this is a book written for children. He is attempting to be witty, but I felt like he was patronizing. Lemony Snicket was so incredibly distracting that I couldn’t enjoy any of it. I believe there is a lot which is worthwhile between these pages. There was little this book provided me which I found even remotely entertaining. These stories show us how to handle our failure and how to rise above it. These stories show children how to be resilient, how to persevere, and how to face failure (though, they do sometimes die in the Grimm tales…). Roald Dahl and Lewis Carroll wrote similar dark fantasy for children. The Brothers Grimm fairy tales are certainly a collection of awful things happening to children. I think there is promise in a children’s story where dark and terrible things happen. They didn’t understand it, but like so many unfortunate events in life, just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it isn’t so. Lemony Snicket reminds the readers constantly, nothing good can befall the Baudeliare orphans in such a situation.

Only this relative, Count Olaf, is a good-for-nothing villain who is only caring for the children to inherit their fortune.

Suddenly, the three children, Sunny, Klaus and Violet, are being shuttled off to a distant relative to live. Their wealthy parents died in a house fire where no one was saved and all their worldly possessions went up in smoke. When The Bad Beginning begins Baudelaire children are now the Baudelaire orphans. And all I can say is that younger me was sooooo right. In fact, it didn’t really sound appealing to me. I have no fond memories of it or any such thing. So, I did not read these books as a child. A Series of Unfortunate Events was first published when I was in high school.

The bad beginning full book