"The Bad Beginning" Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate

[rath010]

The first book in Lemony Snicket's "A Series of Unfortunate Events" is titled The Bad Beginning and follows the tale of three young children who become orphans after a terrible house fire kills their parents. They are sent to live with their uncle is a purely evil character only interested in the money of the family than the children. The idea behind the tale is that the children can never catch a break and are doomed to continue along on a series of unfortunate luck.

I always enjoy the simplicity of a children's aimed novel and found the first of the Lemony Snicket series to be clever. The author himself does aim for younger readers in not only his protagonist casting of three young children, but also in his subtle placement of word definitions throughout his text. In many ways, the author is working to increase vocabulary of the reader. That being said, however, there were some words that did not have a provided definition or apparent complex clues to make me wonder exactly how younger readers would accomplish the book.

From a storyline perspective, I feel like this book series tackled a very interesting issue that was completely missed within its movie adaptation. The evil figure, Count Olaf, is looking to marry the young child, Violet (oldest of the children at age 14) in order to obtain her family's estate. While this book is obviously meant to appeal to children struggling with difficult life situations - this was a bit extreme and a little distasteful. I'm wondering, however, if a child would not pick up on the obvious facts of: a.) they're related by blood or b.) she's severely underage. Hopefully they do not and simply find this a hilarious circumstance.

Overall, I thought the book was clever for its age group and fitting outside of the minor grammatical increases above the targeted reading level. I do see how it can engage children, however I do not think it is the most profound young reader's text out there.

[CharlotteHolmes]

Nice review! I loved this series, and I do believe that while maybe some very young children would not pick up on the book's more series subject, namely that Count Olaf (who is not their actual blood relative, but is disturbing nonetheless) wants to marry a severely underage girl like Violet, when I was a child I understood this situation, and as I grew up reading this series, I believe that many older children would find it to be not nightmare inducing, but realistic and educational, and they would understand that there are real people who do bad things to children, but that there is hope and there are good people in the world who also protect children. I was around 6 or 7 when I first read these books, and coming from a (trigger warning) abusive household myself, they were a great comfort and a source of hope for me.

[rachel_bruhn]

I found out about this series when I was in high school and the movie was released. I was immediately addicted to the books and read them one after the other (except the final book, which hadn't been released yet). I loved the completely unconventional writing style of the book that made it feel like someone was telling you this story. The narrator asides with quirky definitions and such are a perfect example of what makes this series so unique. I don't think that it is a series that children are supposed to relate to or learn lessons from. It is a series that is supposed to pull you out of reality and throw you into this world full of mystery, suspense, and of course many unfortunate circumstances. I think this series is perfect for the middle school target population. There is enough challenge to it that it is not an easy read, but it is still simple enough for that age group to follow. As an adult I still love this series and I can't wait to introduce my son when he is older.

[Mdoucet1086]

I'm on the seventh book in this series. I really enjoyed the first book. Books 2,3,and 4 fell a little flat for me but it picked back with book 5. I'm excited to see how this series ends.