Reader's Journal #9 The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket

Dear Mrs. Zrihen,

                I just finished reading the first book in the “A Series of Unfortunate Events” books by Lemony Snicket.  The name of the book is The Bad Beginning.  Actually, I found out that the books are really written by Brett Helquist, he just writes using the name Lemony Snicket.  I don’t know why he does that.

                Anyway, here’s a passage in the book that I liked a lot because it’s funny.  It happens at the very beginning of the book in the introduction.

                “If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book.”

                I like this passage because it shows that this book is not a reader’s first choice to read because of the sad endings everywhere.

                The reading strategies I used were to skim and scan for text features, read the synopsis. The two during reading strategies I used were to point out where there were good and bad endings and used context clues to find the meanings of unfamiliar words.  Two after reading strategies I used were to guess what the next book in the series would be about and prepare for Reader’s Journal.

                The genre of this book is mystery.  The characteristics are sad.

                This book was flat.  It was flat because not much changed in the book.

                There were three protagonists in the book.  They were Sunny, Violet, and Klaus.  They were three children who went to live with Count Olaf who is the antagonist.  He wants to steal the children’s fortune.  The foil for the three children is Mr. Poe.   Count Olaf’s foil is the theater troop.  The setting is in Count Olaf’s house, the beach, the bank, and the production theater. 

                The exposition is when the three kids are at the beach.  The rising action is when the children are told their mansion burned down and they are sent to Count Olaf’s to stay.  The climax is when Count Olaf traps Sunny in a cage and forces Violet to marry him in a play, except that it would be for real.  The falling action is a after Violet tricks Count Olaf, one of his henchmen turns out the theater lights and whispers in her ear the Count Olaf will be back.   The falling action is the resolution.

                The tone and mood of the book are scary.  The theme goodness and cleverness triumph over evil.  There is no moral of the story.  The point of the view is confusing.  Lemony Snicket is sympathetic to Count Olaf, but Brett Helquist is sympathetic to the children.

                The pattern of organization is the book is divided into chapters.  His purpose is to entertain.  But it’s not very entertaining to watch poor little children being bullied.

                I would not recommend this book to anyone because there is not much happy about it and not many people like reading sad books.  The passage that I chose from the introduction was very true.  I would rate this book a three out of five stars.  The book was OK, but the exciting parts were too obvious about what was going to happen next.

                Sincerely, your student,

Michael Heskiel