Books
x dismiss this message

Did you know you can edit this page?

see page history

Description edit see section history

Dear Reader,
You have undoubtedly picked up this book by mistake, so please put it down. Nobody in their right mind would read this particular book about the lives of Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire on purpose, because each dismal moment of their stay in the village of V.F.D. has been... read more

Summary edit see section history

Under a new government program based on the saying "It takes a village to raise a child," the Baudelaire orphans are adopted by an entire town, with disastrous results.

Characters edit see section history

  • Violet Baudelaire: Oldest of the Baudelaire siblings, smart, inventor, pulls her hair up in a ribbon when thinking about an invention
  • Klaus Baudelaire: Middle child of the family, genius, reads everything he can
  • Sunny Baudelaire: Youngest; baby, four very sharp teeth, likes to bite, talks in baby jibberish that only Violet and Klaus can understand, bites everything
  • Duncan Quagmire: Baudelaire's friend and journalist,and Isadora's brother
  • Jacques Snicket: A man looking for the Baudelaires, possibly someone who could have told them more about their parents' murder, but unfortunately, he died.
  • Isadora Quagmire: Baudelaire's friend,Duncan's sister,and poet
  • Hector: Caretaker of the Baudelaires. He works as a handyman for the Elders of V.F.D.
  • Count Olaf: Some unknown relation to the Baudelaires, villain, still after Baudelaire fortune, now captured friends of the Baudelaires
  • Mr. Poe: Oversees all actions towards the Baudelaires and seems to have a constant cold
Popular Covers

Loading covers…

Choose your book’s cover

Quotes edit see section history

  • “For Beatrice--When we were together I felt breathless. Now, you are.”
    Lemony Snicket
  • “Just about everything in this world is easier said than done, with the exception of ‘systematically assisting Sisyphus’s stealthy, syst-susceptible sister,’ which is easier done than said.”
    Lemony Snicket
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • No matter who you are, no matter where you live, and no matter how many people are chasing you, what you don’t read is often as important as what you do read.
    Highlighted by 36 Kindle customers
  • “‘Murder’ is the word for a group of crows, like a flock of geese or a herd of cows or a convention of orthodontists.
    Highlighted by 32 Kindle customers
  • For sapphires we are held in here. Only you can end our fear.
    Highlighted by 31 Kindle customers
  • Until dawn comes we cannot speak. No words can come from this sad beak.
    Highlighted by 30 Kindle customers
  • “Fata morgana is when your eyes play tricks on you, particularly in hot weather,”
    Highlighted by 27 Kindle customers
  • “Small potatoes” is a phrase which has nothing to do with root vegetables that happen to be tiny in size. Instead, it refers to the change in one’s feelings for something when it is compared with something else. If you were walking in the rain, for instance, you might be worried about getting wet, but if you turned the corner and saw a pack of vicious dogs, getting wet would suddenly become small potatoes next to getting chased down an alley and barked at, or possibly eaten.
    Highlighted by 26 Kindle customers
  • “Count Olaf has been captured,” she said, and the Baudelaires felt as if a bolt of lightning had struck them once more.
    Highlighted by 26 Kindle customers
  • The quoting of an aphorism, like the angry barking of a dog or the smell of overcooked broccoli, rarely indicates that something helpful is about to happen. An aphorism is merely a small group of words arranged in a certain order because they sound good that way, but oftentimes people tend to say them as if they were saying something very mysterious and wise.
    Highlighted by 25 Kindle customers
  • Entertaining a notion, like entertaining a baby cousin or entertaining a pack of hyenas, is a dangerous thing to refuse to do. If you refuse to entertain a baby cousin, the baby cousin may get bored and entertain itself by wandering off and falling down a well. If you refuse to entertain a pack of hyenas, they may become restless and entertain themselves by devouring you.
    Highlighted by 24 Kindle customers
  • If you are baking a pie for your friends, and you read an article entitled “How to Build a Chair” instead of a cookbook, your pie will probably end up tasting like wood and nails instead of like crust and fruity filling.
    Highlighted by 24 Kindle customers
Show all 12 quotes from this book

Setting & Locations edit see section history

Organizations edit see section history

  • VFD: The Quagmires had tried to tell the Baudelaires the secret of VFD and Count Olaf

First Sentence edit see section history

No matter who you are, no matter where you live, and no matter how many people are chasing you, what you don't read is often as important as what you do read.

Table of Contents edit see section history

This book has thirteen untitled chapters.

Glossary edit see section history

  • Punctilio: This word is the name of a daily newspaper. The newspaper is called the Daily Punctilio. I think that this is a really wierd name for a newspaper.
  • Murder: A group of crows is called a murder.

Series & Lists edit see section history

This is book 7 of 13 in A Series of Unfortunate Events. (standard series)

Preceded by The Ersatz Elevator, and followed by The Hostile Hospital.

This is book 708 of 986 in 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up. (authoritative list)
This is book 31 of 216 in Whitcoulls Kids' Top 50 (2011). (authoritative list)

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Lemony Snicket (Author)

Other Contributors:

  1. Brett Helquist (Illustrator)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: HarperCollins
Country: United States
Publication Date: May 2001
ISBN: 0064408655
Page Count: 272

Classification edit see section history

  • Library of Congress: PZ7.S6795 Vi 2001
  • Dewey: 813.54

Movie Connections edit see section history

More Books Like This edit see section history

   
  • The Bad Beginning
  • The Reptile Room
  • The Penultimate Peril
  • The End
  • The Grim Grotto
  • The Ersatz Elevator
  • The Wide Window
  • The Miserable Mill
  • The Austere Academy
  • The Carnivorous Carnival
  • The Slippery Slope
  • The Hostile Hospital
  • The Beatrice Letters

Books with Additional Background Information edit see section history

   
  • The Bad Beginning
  • The Reptile Room
  • The Wide Window
  • The Miserable Mill
  • The Austere Academy
  • The Ersatz Elevator

We’re hiding the themes, errata, awards, links to supplemental material, books that influenced this book, books influenced by this book, books that cite this book and books cited by this book sections. If you would like to add content to them, you must first make them visible.