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PostPosted: 25 Jun 2017 13:12 
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I have just finished reading „A series of unfortunate events- The bad beginnig” by Lemony Snicket and I have to say that the title of this book fits precisely to the plot of the book itself. I wrote down some ideas that I come up while reading the story.
First of all I think that this book can be regarded educational in a way. Even though at the first glance this may not be suitable for children as having the negative ideas intermingled in the plot, this book can be used to teach the reader:
- many words are explained in this book. The writes uses a word, and thinking the reader may not understand it he gives its meaning too. For instance: “The word “briskly” here means “quickly” , or „It will be of no interest to you if I describe the action of this insipid-the word “insipid” here means“dull and foolish” „.
-there are also other lessons that can be learned from this book. For instance, law is not something that cannot be changed, one has to obey the law even if this means allowing a 14 year old to marry an old man. However law can also be cruel, as when Klaus tells Mr. Poe that the Count has slapped him, Mr. Poe tells him that there is nothing to be done, because Olaf is the children’s tutor and he has the right to do whatever he wants
- I particularly liked the lesson that can be extracted from the following quotation “but it is a sad truth in life that when someone has lost a loved one, friends sometimes avoid the person, just when the presence of friends is most needed”. I can say from my personal experience that this is very true. There are many paragraphs that can be used for teaching different lessons, just like the fact that crying can be helpful in harsh situations, but I will stop only at these ones.
When it comes to characters they are very strange indeed.
- the children are very smart but from the beginning I found it strange that Klaus liked reading and Violet was interested in building things. I think that their likes are a bit changed as reading tends to be for girls and inventing for boys. However these hobbies will help them solve different task and prevent Violet from marrying the Count
- Count Olaf is mischievous and only interested in the children’s money which is shown from the very beginning “This room looks like it needs a little work,” Mr. Poe said, peering around in the gloom. “I realize that my humble home isn’t as fancy as the Baudelaire mansion,” Count Olaf said, “but perhaps with a bit of your money we could fix it up a little nicer.”
- Justice Strauss is gullible and doesn’t see anything strange in marrying them two, all she sees is her way of getting on stage
- Mr. Poe is not very interested on the kids as he very fast finds a home for them and makes them go away from his house
Then there are two things that also made me think a little. That is the “rickety trolley” that the children play with at the beginning that is like a foretelling of their future. You play with this trolley, this is all you will have left from your parents, this is what you will use to begin again your life. And then there is “the eye” which is painted on the front door, on ceiling, on door knobs even tattooed on Count Olaf. I see this as “Big Brother”. Even if Count Olaf is not present he knows everything that the children do and manages to stop them in every situation when they try to escape from him.


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