A Series of Unfortunate Events #5: The Austere Academy 雷蒙·斯尼奇的不幸历险5：严酷的学校 ISBN9780064408639

　　As the three Baudelaire orphans warily approach their new homePrufrock Preparatory School : they can′t help but notice theenormous stone arch bearing the school′s motto Memento Mori or"Remember you will die." This is not a cheerful greeting andcertainly marks an inauspicious beginning to a very bleak storyjust as we have come to expect from Lemony Snickett′s Series ofUnfortunate Events, the deliciously morbid set of books that beganwith The Bad Beginning and only got worse.

　　Lemony Snicket is the pen name of Daniel Handler, who was bornon February 28, 1970. As Lemony Snicket, he is the author of andappears as a character in the children's book series A Series ofUnfortunate Events. He has also written or contributed to otherworks under the pen name of Lemony Snicket that are not related toA Series of Unfortunate Events including Baby in the Manger, TheLump of Coal, and The Composer is Dead. Under his real name,Handler is the author of several books for adults including TheBasic Eight, Watch Your Mouth, and Adverbs.

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　　Grade 4-7-In this fifth entry in the saga of the threeBaudelaire children, the siblings are sent to a boarding schoolwhere they are tormented because they are orphans. There is theusual array of stupid/evil adults including the ridiculous VicePrincipal Nero, who mimics everything that Klaus and Violet say andemploys baby Sunny as his secretary because she is too young toattend class. Brown-nosing brats like Carmelita Spats make thechildren's lives even more miserable. The ending is a cliff-hangeras the evil Count Olaf, disguised as Coach Genghis, the new gymteacher, drives off with the orphans' only friends. In these daysof Harry Potter, this book is a pesky nuisance, with little plot todrive it, situations that fall short of being interesting oroff-the-wall, and cardboard characters. The author strains to beeccentric and his constant interruptions in the narrative to definea word or phrase are jarring at best.
　　Gr. 4-6. The Beaudelaire orphans enroll as students at PrufrockAcademy in the fifth Series of Unfortunate Events book. TheAcademy, run by nasty, mimicking Vice Principal Nero, is shapedlike a large tombstone, and the perpetually unlucky Violet, Klaus,and Sunny must stay in a tin shack with biting crabs, dripping tanfungus, and green walls decorated with tiny green hearts. Seriesfollowers will be keeping their eye out for evil Count Olaf in oneof his disguises, and the author doesn't disappoint. Snicket onceagain uses comical word definitions in the text ("the phrase'impressionable age' here means 'ten and eight years old,respectively'), and just when things seem a little too predictable,Count Olaf makes off with the Beaudelaire's new friends, theQuagmire orphans, so setting things up for book six. Kids notfamiliar with the previous books will also enjoy this.