The Bad Beginning: Book the First by Lemony Snicket


Snicket, Lemony. The Bad Beginning: Book the First. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 1999. 176 pages $12.99 ISBN 9780064407663

Plot Summary: Newly orphaned Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire are moved from the terrible Mr. Poe house to the even more terrible Count Olaf house. The children try to move back to the slightly less terrible Poe house, but Mr. Poe will not here any of it. They know Count Olaf is evil, and just wants their money, but have no help in stopping him. Ultimately their fate is in their own hands.

Critical Evaluation: This is quite a quirky book. If I thought a book about orphans would be depressing, a book about rich orphans whose only relatives don't want them and just want their money is even more depressing. And yet, I found myself giggling through much of the book. The book is very clever and I'm interested in how much worse the lives of the Baudelaire children will get through the rest of the series.

Reader's Annotation: Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire fight for their right to the family inheritance and fair treatment in the shadow of mean Count Olaf.

Author Bio: Lemony Snicket is the author of the Series of Unfortunate Events, the picture books The Composer is Dead, The Lump of Coal and The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming as well as Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid and Unfortunate Events tie-ins. Lemony Snicket is a pen name for author Daniel Handler. Handler has published three books under his own name, The Basic Eight, Watch Your Mouth and Adverbs. Handler graduated from Wesleyan University in 1992 and married Lisa Brown, whom he met in college. The couple lives in San Francisco with their son Otto.

Genre: Modern Fairy Tale, Drama

Curriculum Ties: None.

Booktalking Ideas: Reading the first chapter would be a great way to lure students into reading the series.

Reading Level/Interest Age: Ages 9-12, Grades 3-6

Challenges: The murder of the parents may be an issue, but the author doesn't go into detail.

Reason for including: I have been intrigued by this series for a while, but had only seen the movie until this semester. I know it is very popular, probably among younger tweens.

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