What Parents Should Know
The bleak atmosphere of the story keeps readers holding
their breath, as will the damsel-on-train-tracks adventure.
Periodic gusts of humor, admittedly wicked, allow readers to
start breathing again.
Common Sense Media Review
Snicket successfully negotiates the treacherous waters of
gallows humor in this first volume of his
Series of Unfortunate Events. Like Edward Gorey, his
success is due to the formal, deadpan quality of his fine
writing, its understated way with catastrophe. The result is at
once grim and sinister and terrifically entertaining.
The book doesn't get by on ghoulishness alone; it needs a story, and it has a good one. Snicket keeps readers off balance: He states flatly that things won't turn out right for the Baudelaires, then holds out some promise, only to snatch it back. As if it isn't bad enough that fate clobbers Violet, Klaus, and Sunny at every turn, the adults they must rely on for security and sanctuary prove either inept or evil. There is nowhere to turn but to themselves.
A ten-year-old could be heard to sigh when yet another disaster befell the children. "Whoa," he sympathized. He also wanted to read the book by himself, as if to control the flow.
The story is enlivened by artwork from Helquist, yet the illustrations are few in number--more would have added a real visual boost to the work. Next in the series comes The Reptile Room and The Wide Window.
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