Lemony Snicket

So after spending six hours with a semi-sick Little One yesterday I am now an authority on all things Lemony Snickett.

First I took her on errands: post office, dry cleaners, recylcing center. And during this, leading up to our trip to the library, she regaled me with the plotlines from Lemony Snickett’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, a series of grim books consumed rabidly by pre-tweens. Black comedies. Kinda like an Addams Family for the 21st century. And Little One knew every character, relationship, backstory, plot twist. What struck me most disturbing – and “disturbing” really means “interesting” – is the gruesome manner in which family members are, uh, dispatched.

The books follow a trio of sibling orphans – Violet (the “inventor”), Klaus (the “reader”, whose name Little One enunciates as “claws”), and Sunny (an infant known as the “biter”). At the start their wealthy, mysterious parents are killed in a fire. They’re sent to live with their closest relative: the evil, crazy, weird, maniacal, greedy Count Olaf:

Count Olaf wants that inheritance, and he’ll stop at nothing to get it – including murder. Each book details his nefarious schemes, usually culminating in the death of a family member who takes the orphans in and the children’s unmasking of Olaf as the perpetrator.

Yeah, it disturbed me at first (see end of paragraph 2, above), but Little One is really into it … for the weird humor of it. And it is weirdly humorous. At the library she insisted we rent the Jim Carrey 2004 movie version, which I did. Once home, she insisted I sit down and watch it with her, which I did. Afterwards, she told me it was an awesome flick – did I agree? I did.

Though she seems just a tad bit too young for the target market for these books, I’m okay with it. If these books had been around in the 70s I’d have read ’em all. And it’s not like I’m warped, right?

Right?