A Series Of Unfortunate Events

Most books can be divided into categories; romance, drama, fantasy... the list goes on. A series of books called A Series Of Unfortunate Events can't be so easily sorted out so it usually is filed under the ambiguous record of Children's Fiction.

This unique series concerns three siblings, all with their own unique talent. Violet Baudelaire, the eldest, is an extraordinary inventor. Klaus Baudelaire, the middle child and only boy, is an expert researcher with a passion for reading. Sunny Baudelaire, an infant for most of the series, has unusually sharp teeth that help her with her later interest in cooking. All seems well for the children until one they they go out to the beach and a banker, Mr. Poe, comes to tell them that an unexplainable fire has killed their beloved parents.

Having no godparents, the children are sent to live with Count Olaf who is their third cousin four times removed or fourth cousin three times removed. While under Olaf's care the children are given a small room with no bed and chores that adults are far better suited for. It soon becomes apparent that Olaf is after the children's fortune that they shall inherit when Violet becomes of age.

After an attempt to marry Violet, the children are released from Olaf's guardianship and taken to a number of guardians, most of whom are of no assistance and blind to Olaf's obvious disguises. Using their intelligence, which they have more of then most adults in the series, the siblings manage to unmask Olaf only to have him escape.

In the fifth book, The Austere Academy, the three meet Isadora and Duncan Quagmire who are triplets as intelligent as the Baudelaire's. They lost their parents and the third triplet, Quigley, in a fire. Despite this, they dislike being called twins. Like the Baudelaire's the triplets- including the presumably dead Quigley- have their own talent. Duncan is a journalist, Isadora is a poet, and Quigley was a cartographer (someone who makes maps). Also like the Baudelaire's, the Quagmires have a fortune- in their case, the Quagmire sapphires. While being kidnapped by Olaf, the Quagmires yell out a secret about Olaf- V.F.D.

I thoroughly enjoyed this series. Lemony Snicket (aka Daniel Handler) narrates as an unseen character in an enjoyable way. Using this technique he manages to make the usually dark series comedic and makes for loose ends at the end of the series that the reader is to make up his/her own mind upon. For example, he implies that a taxi-driver that wants the Baudelaire's to come into his vehicle is himself with The Sugar Bowl, an artifact crucial to the secret organization of V.F.D. but this is not confirmed.

The themes expressed in these stories are thought-provoking. The fact the adults the children depend upon mostly well meaning but dim-witted, or mean and dim-witted, brings to thought that our own society may be run by such characters. Justification is a prevalent topic as the books go on, the children wondering if what they have done (theft, arson) makes them no better than Olaf and his comrades.

A Series Of Unfortunate Event was defiantly a worth-while series and I would recommend it to anyone with a love of reading.