Shouldn't You Be in School?

December 1, 2014

Gr 4-6-In this installment of series that precedes "A Series of Unfortunate Events" (HarperCollins), 13-year-old Lemony Snicket must work together with his incompetent chaperone to figure out who is burning down all of the buildings in the quaint town of Stain'd-by-the-Sea. Snicket is part of a special program, the V.F.D., and spends his days sleuthing with his chaperone, Theodora, in an attempt to catch the elusive and mysterious Hangfire, who is supposedly to blame for all of the mysterious happenings in Stain'd-by-the-Sea. Together, he and his friends must uncover the town's secrets and thwart Hanfire's attempt to burn down the library. But everything gets even more complicated when Hangfire manages to frame the librarian for arson, and Snicket is left questioning the trustworthiness of his friends. This series carries the same sarcastic charm of the "Unfortunate Events" books and will have young readers chuckling out loud. The characters are all fun and quirky in their own right, and the mystery is well developed and enticing. The illustrations add an extra dimension to the story, and the author does a fantastic job of incorporating mini vocabulary lessons into each chapter. Fans of Snicket's previous outings will devour the latest entry.-Candyce Pruitt-Goddard, Hartford Public Library, CT

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Can an apprentice in a certain secret organization keep his associates safe and save a dying town-or is that one of the wrong questions? Someone has set fire to Birnbaum's Sheep Barn, a local business, and Lemony Snicket's clueless chaperone, S. Theodora Markson, takes the case. But the client is the heretofore unheard-of department of education of Stain'd-by-the-Sea (a town with only one school). Snicket strongly suspects that the villain Hangfire is behind the arson; when local librarian Dashiell Qwerty is framed for the crime, Snicket is certain his suspicions are correct. But why would Hangfire burn down a sheep barn? After the school burns, Lemony Snicket and his young associates plot to save Stain'd-by-the-Sea's children and the rest of its structures from Hangfire and the total numbskullery of the adult population. Some questions are answered, and still more are posed in Lemony Snicket (the author)'s third All the Wrong Questions tale. Lemony Snicket (the character) continues to worry about the sister he left in the city (she has now been arrested) and whether he can save (and in some cases trust) his young associates. Seth returns to add occasional spooky, intriguing bicolor illustrations. Linguistic play and literary allusions abound in this smart, slyly humorous noir thriller. Fans will be over the moon, a phrase that here means exceedingly pleased. (Mystery. 8-14) COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

January 1, 2015
In his third adventure, twelve-year-old Lemony Snicket, apprentice investigator, tackles a series of arsons in the economically depressed and highly mysterious town of Stain'd-by-the-Sea. Readers already hooked by this series will be pleased to check in with heroic librarian Qwerty, investigative journalist Moxie Mallahan, and the bickering Officers Mitchum and their bullying son, Stewart. New to the cast are a suspicious Department of Education representative and suspected arsonist Harold Limetta. (Ring a bell? The Third Man?) Bells are ringing all over this romp, with a veritable carillon of film noir and children's literature references, from Patricia Highsmith to Beatrix Potter. It's all in support of a good-natured satire of school, an experience one character describes as "the usual song and dance of teachers and homework and recess and gum stuck to the underside of the desks." As to the actual story, clues of the gray-matter sort (such as anagrams) combine with escapes, attacks, cliffhangers, and looming bad guys, keeping the whole crazy plot buoyant. Just. sarah ellis

(Copyright 2015 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)