6th Grade Entry - The Bad Beginning

6th graders at WOMS were invited to write blog posts on books they've recently read. this is Jake's entry. Thanks, Jake.

A Series of Unfortunate Events
*The Bad Beginning*
Lemony Snicket
HarperCollins Publishers, 162 p.


The three Baudelaire children Violet, Klaus, and Sunny have the best life a child could imagine. The Baudelaire children have everything they could ever wish for: an enormous mansion and wonderful, caring parents. However their lives are changed forever, when Mr. Poe brings the children some terrible news. He tells the children that their mansion has burned down and their parents along with it. The children race back to the house only to find it ruins. Now they have no parents, nowhere to live and no close relatives to live with. The only choice they have is that they’ll have to go live at their busiest relative, Count Olaf. When the “orphans” arrive at Count Olaf’s, they think they’d be better off living at their burned down house. Count Olaf’s house is filthy with broken windows, chipped paint and eyes…everywhere from the door, to the walls, to the furniture. Count Olaf welcome’s them nicely but as soon as Mr. Poe leaves, Count Olaf treats them poorly and unfairly. He makes them do chores like fixing the windows and making him and his theater troupe dinner and only gives them one bed to sleep on so one of them sleeps on the bed while one of them sleeps on the floor. None of them get any sleep and they have to deal with Count Olaf 24/7. The real reason why Count Olaf treats the “orphans” with so little respect is that he is after their ENORMOUS fortune. The children must think fast if they want to stop Count Olaf from taking their fortune and worse. Their right to live.

Violet is the sort of person that likes to invent things. Klaus should know. Whenever she ties up her hair in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes, you know she’s thinking hard. When she is older, she wants to invent things that can help people with their daily problems and make their lives easier.

Klaus, the middle child, loves to read books. Back when their parents were alive and their house was still up, the Baudelaires had an ENORMOUS library. Klaus would sit in the library almost every hour of the day, and whatever he read, he remembered.

Sunny, the youngest, had a completely different interest. She enjoys biting things with her four sharp teeth. She also had a whole other made-up vocabulary. Like when she says “Gook” she probably means “This tastes funny”

What I really liked about this book is that the author used strong vocabulary. I also admired the descriptions. Not only about the characters, but the multiple settings. I also liked how the author wasn’t afraid to write one sad thing after another. This book was extremely unpleasant, but it was well written.

This book was definitely sad and I definitely recommend this book to people who don’t mind reading so unfortunate and so sad. You might want to be a reader like that or else you would want to put the book down and find something happier to read if that’s your style.


Submitted by,

Jake N.