Book Sharing Monday - A Series of Unfortunate Events

This was a great "used book" purchase. I recently discovered that we are missing three books from this series. I'll be keeping my eyes open for these. With this series, I purchased the first book (The Bad Beginning) and read it to see if it was something we'd like. All of us LOVED it, especially Austyn! So, I got as many as I could from our local small-town book store. As you can see from this picture, we are currently reading book 2 (The Reptile Room).

These books are about three children who have the worst possible thing happen to them; their parents die when their house burns down.They lose their parents and everything they own. This is how their series of unfortunate events starts. After that a family friend needs to place them with a relative, but since they were not close to any relatives they are placed with one distant relative after another.

Throughout the books the author uses his quirky personality to narrate how he has decided to write the books, apologizing for leaving the reader hanging, because he had to make it to a dinner party or for just writing a book with such sad occurrences (I don't think that was a word he used, but it seemed like an appropriate word).  These entertaining books are full of suspense and are full of big words that the author throws in to describe situations, people, or things, and then the he adds what the word means in each particular situation. This builds vocabulary in a very interesting way! I'm so happy that we found these books!

I also wouldn't mind watching the movie, since we've read the first book. I know that rarely movies are as good as the book, but it's always interesting to see how the movie differs from what we read.

The author's website is so much fun! Lemony Snicket is a mysterious author, whom we can't see! What a fun way to introduce himself to the world: faceless! There are games, activities, word searches and much more on the website. He has other books available as well. We may need to check those books out too!

Warning: if you have a child who is sensitive, the fear-driven suspense in these books may be too much to handle. My kids are fine with a book that might be a bit scary and may have corruption, greed, abuse, or even the possibility of murder. Your kids may not be okay with these things. You decide.