Before last week I had never heard of the authour Lemony Snicket (AKA Daniel Handler). I do not believe I was alone. In the last week Snicket, the pen-name used by Handler when writing kids books, has been featured in The National Post, his website has appeared on K10k and Handler has also written an article for Salon discussing the top five books with the word “bird” in the title.*

It took me some time to determine whether or not Lemony Snicket (simply the best pen-name out there other than Mark Twain) was actually a children’s authour. His series of children’s books, titled A Series of Unfortunate Events, is certainly written so that a child can read it, but the content is somewhat unusual for a children’s fiction. The beginning of the series, titled The Bad Beginning, involves the death of the Baudelaire children’s parents in a fire. This is followed by, among other things, Count Olaf attemting to marry 14-year-old Violet, 12-year-old claus nearly killing someone with a buzz-saw, and an angry mob chasing the children from town.

The people who didn’t like the Harry Potter books will really hate this series. Myself, I think it’s about time we got back to the age old business of frightening small children.

* My favourite book with “bird” in the title, At Swim Two Birds by Flan O’Brien, is mentioned but doesn’t make it to the top five. It should. Thankfully, To Kill a Mockingbird does not make an appearance.