Lemony Snicket

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Barbara J. Feldman

My daughter just loves saying his name: "Lemony Snicket." It makes her laugh and before she even read the first page of the first book, she was intrigued. She's now knee-deep in finishing the first eight "A Series of Unfortunate Events" books, and eagerly awaiting the October publication of the ninth. They are not "sugar and spice and everything nice" but they are well-written and hugely popular.

Kidsreads.com: A Series of Unfortunate Events

4 stars

Start your Lemony Snicket adventure with four short video clips narrated by Daniel Handler (an "associate" of Mr. Snicket) urging you not to read "A Series of Unfortunate Events" and to keep the books out of the hands of children. You'll also enjoy the character sketches of Violet, Klaus, Sonny and Count Olaf written by Snicket himself, and his answers to Frequently Asked Questions.

Lemony Snicket

5 stars

"Attention: please run for your life. You have undoubtedly reached this Web site by mistake." Yet with an introduction such as this, we are quite positive we have reached the absolutely right place: the official Lemony Snicket site. If you persevere past all the warnings, you'll find excerpts from each of the books, a free screensaver, an author bio, a bio of illustrator Brett Helquist, and a handful of games. Week after week I recommend word search puzzles, but the Count Olaf Word Search is the one word search puzzle you should never see. Do not click there. Ever. I mean it.

Quidditch.com: Lemony Snicket

4 stars

When I announced this week's topic to my daughter, she had two questions: What is Lemony Snicket's real name? Who is Beatrice? The answer to the first question is Daniel Handler. The answer to the second question may be found here, where the folks at Quidditch.com explore the many literary and cultural references found in "A Series of Unfortunate Events." Great fun for those wanting to learn more about Dante, Edgar Allen Poe, George Orwell, F. Scott Fitzgerald and other famous folks.

Unfortunate Events

5 stars

Join the hunt for Lemony Snicket by registering with your email address and choosing a user name. The hunt (created by Egmont Books, the British publisher of the Snicket series) is a collection of Flash arcade games, with high scores saved and posted. In addition to the games, you'll find book synopsis for the first five books listed under The Terrible Story and postcards to share with friends at Lemony Widgets. Great fun, but sometimes the overwhelmingly black pages are a bit hard to read.