Child's view: why these books are great

The three Baudelaires are orphans. Their names are Violet, Klaus and Sunny, who is a baby. Their parents died in a fire. They used to be really rich and live in a mansion, and that is why Count Olaf, who is their uncle, is trying to steal the money that Violet will inherit.

The Austere Academy is the fifth book about them in Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events. In each one the author warns you that if you don't like unhappy endings then you had better put the book down right now. And he's right because nothing good ever happens to them. In this book the orphans are sent to Prufrock Preparatory. It is a horrid school. Without a permission form to sleep in a comfortable dormitory, you have to sleep in a shack with crabs and fungus and green walls with pink hearts on them. The two nastiest people in the school are vice-principal Nero, who thinks he is a genius at the violin (he's not), and Carmelita Spats, "a rude, violent and mean" girl who always calls the orphans and their friends "cake-sniffers". As usual Count Olaf turns up in disguise, but I won't tell you who he is because that will give it away.

I like Lemony Snicket's books because there is always an unexpected twist and when there is a difficult word he tells you what it means. Sometimes he goes off into little stories about how his own life is similar to the Baudelaires.