Do any actual kids like Lemony Snicket books, or are they only read by hip parents who think that they are the kind of books they want their kids to like?Because, sure, I'd think it was neat if my daughter was into, like, opaquely plotted genre satires stuffed with obtuse narration, whimsical wordplay, literary references and impenetrable characters, books that tackled life's big philosophical questions through a meta-filter of storytelling.But actually, kids want to read Captain Underpants and Judy Moody. This is why the publisher has turned the Lemony Snicket books into uniformly designed fetish objects: because they appeal exactly to the book-loving parents who fool themselves into thinking their kids will one day pull them off the shelf and actually read them. But not that copy! That's daddy's special matched-set copy.Oh, this book? Well, if you read all 13 volumes of A Series of Unfortunate Events, it is more of the same. Delightful writing, a total unwillingness to actually explain what is going on, promises of revelations in future lovingly-designed books in the series, none of which will actually contain any of those answers.(Xmas gift.)
