The Bad Beginning: Book the First (A Series of Unfortunate Events) (2 cassettes) FROM OUR EDITORS
The Bad Beginning is actually a great beginning. It's the first book in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, a wonderfully different and disastrous children's story starring three highly unlucky siblings. In this first book, readers are introduced to the unfortunate Baudelaire children -- 14-year-old Violet, 12-year-old Klaus, and their infant sister, Sunny -- when they learn they've just been orphaned by a terrible house fire.
The executor of the Baudelaire estate -- a phlegm-plagued banker named Mr. Poe -- sends the children to live with a distant relative: a conniving and dastardly villain named Count Olaf, who has designs on the Baudelaire fortune. Count Olaf uses the children as slave labor, provides horrid accommodations for them, and makes them cook huge meals for him and his acting troupe, a bunch of odd-looking, renegade good-for-nothings. When the children are commandeered to appear in Count Olaf's new play, they grow suspicious and soon learn that the play is not the innocent performance it seems but rather a scheme cooked up by Olaf to help him gain control of the children's millions.
All this bad luck does provide for both great fun and great learning opportunities, however. Violet is a budding McGyver whose inventions help the children in their quest, Klaus possesses a great deal of book smarts, and Sunny -- whose only real ability is an incredibly strong bite -- provides moral support and frequent comedy relief. Then there are the many amusing word definitions, colloquialisms, clichés, hackneyed phrases, and other snippets of language provided by the narrator (a character in his own right) that can't help but expand readers' vocabularies. Though the Baudelaire children suffer myriad hardships and setbacks, in the end they do manage to outsmart and expose Olaf's devious ways. But of course, with luck like theirs, it's a given that Olaf will escape and return to torment them again some day. If only misery was always this much fun. (Beth Amos)
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Dear Reader,
I'm sorry to say that the book you are holding in your hands is extremely unpleasant. It tells an unhappy tale about three very unlucky children. Even though they are charming and clever, the Baudelaire siblings lead lives filled with misery and woe. From the very first page of this book when the children are at the beach and receive terrible news, continuing on through the entire story, disaster lurks at their heels. One might say they are magnets for misfortune.
In this short book alone, the three youngsters encounter a greedy and repulsive villain, itchy clothing, a disastrous fire, a plot to steal their fortune, and cold porridge for breakfast.
It is my sad duty to write down these unpleasant tales, but there is nothing stopping you from putting this book down at once and reading something happy, if you prefer that sort of thing.
With all due respect,
Lemony Snicket
FROM THE CRITICS
Ron Charles
The arch-sounding narrator may seem witty and explanatorybut do not be fooled. This book is filled with disaster and mystery and long knives and poisonous snakes and itchy clothing....Unlike the good snake doctorthis series promises to have a longproductive life. —Christian Science Monitor
Publishers Weekly
British actor Tim Curry, whose reputation for playing dastardly villain types precedes him, is terrific in this adaptation of the intentionally over-the-top, slightly scary tale of the Baudelaire orphans. As narrator/author Snicket, Curry relates the sad saga with pity and enlightenment sparked by dashes of humor. When the Baudelaire children, Violet, Klaus and baby Sunny, learn that their parents have perished in a fire at the family mansion, the children's rocky course is set for misery and misadventure (enough to fill the projected 13 volumes of this clever book series). The executor of the Baudelaire parents' will and keeper of the family fortune, Mr. Poe, arranges for the orphans to live with a guardian, a creepy distant relative named Count Olaf. Nasty in more ways than one, Count Olaf mistreats the children, leading them to quickly discover that he only wants their money. After they unravel one of the count's more awful schemes, the children are eventually delivered from the situation, leading neatly into a sequel. Curry plays Olaf with an appropriately spooky whispering hiss and deserves extra kudos for his convincing portrayal of Poe's racking, sometimes phlegmy cough. As a bonus, the tape contains a hilarious interview between historian, critic and author Leonard S. Marcus and Daniel Handler (suspected to be the mysterious Lemony Snicket himself). An entertaining song called "Scream and Run Away," about Count Olaf, fittingly closes the proceedings. Ages 9-up. (Mar.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Children's Literature
Audio books are a fabulous family solution to travel boredom. Highly recommended are Lemony Snicket's "Series of Unfortunate Events." These satirical melodramas relate the adventures of the three gifted Baudelaire orphans as they battle the evil Count Olaf who means to destroy them and gain their fortune. This series, one of children's books' newer reading phenomena, has subtle humor, Roald Dahl-like pathos, and lots of action. The narrator of the book is so good that he qualifies as a character; he is chummy at times, entertaining at others, and periodically, amicably intrusive as he defines words and terms. These qualities translate fabulously in tapes. Tim Curry reads the first two books, The Bad Beginning and The Reptile Room. He over dramatizes, just as the series style seems to demand; he gives the villain a sinister, sibilant voice and the children's clueless protector, a phlegmy lawyer, is almost disgusting in Curry's rendition. There are two cassettes, unabridged. 2001, Listening Library, $18.00. Ages 8 up. Reviewer: Susie Wilde
Library Journal
Gr 4-6-This series chronicles the unfortunate lives of the Baudelaire children: Violet, 14; Klaus, 12; and the infant, Sunny. In Bad Beginning, their parents and possessions perish in a fire, and the orphans must use their talents to survive as their lives move from one disastrous event to another. Surrounded by dim-witted though well-meaning adults, the Baudelaires find themselves in the care of their evil relative, Count Olaf, a disreputable actor whose main concern is getting his hands on the children's fortune. When Olaf holds Sunny hostage to force Violet to marry him, it takes all of the siblings' resourcefulness to outwit him. Violet's inventive genius, Klaus's forte for research, and Sunny's gift for biting the bad guys at opportune moments save the day. However, the evil Count escapes, only to return in The Reptile Room just as the children are settling into a far more pleasant life with their new guardian, Uncle Monty, who is promptly murdered by Olaf and his cohorts. Though the villain escapes again, and beloved Uncle Monty is dead, the children are safe...for now. While the misfortunes hover on the edge of being ridiculous, Snicket's energetic blend of humor, dramatic irony, and literary flair makes it all perfectly believable. The writing, peppered with fairly sophisticated vocabulary and phrases, may seem daunting, but the inclusion of Snicket's perceptive definitions of difficult words makes these books challenging to older readers and excellent for reading aloud.-Linda Bindner, formerly at Athens Clarke County Library, GA Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
AudioFile
[Editor's Note: The follwing is a combined review with THE REPTILE ROOM.]—The three Baudelaire orphans, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny, have recently joined the world of children's literature made hospitable by a wizard named Harry. Their miserable lives, an unrelenting series of catastrophes, have become the source of grins and giggles among elementary and middle-grade readers. And who better to read the serialized melodrama than the multitalented Tim Curry, master of multiple voices and deadpan delivery? Fabulously funny, the first two volumes afford Curry, as the deeply sorrowful, omniscient narrator, an opportunity to display his enormous talents—in Mr. Poe's chronic, wheezing cough; Sunny's squawking, incomprehensible gibberish; Count Olaf's sinister and malevolent arch villainy; and Uncle Monty's lisp. An added bonus on The Bad Beginning is a wildly funny interview between Leonard Marcus and Daniel Handler (who is actually suspected to be the author, Lemony Snicket!) that will have kids longing for more. To extend the fun, each audiobook is decked out with an appropriate theme song by the Gothic Archies. Listeners should be prepared to settle in for some serious frivolity! T.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine
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