“There was a town, and there was a girl, and there was a theft. I was living in the town, and I was hired to investigate the theft, and I thought the girl had nothing to do with it. I was almost thirteen and I was wrong.”
This opener in a new series by quirky Lemony Snicket has the reader asking all the wrong questions and getting little answers. Young Snicket begins his career with chaperone S. Theodora Markson after escaping through a tearoom bathroom window. The two head immediately for Stain’d-by-the sea, a town which is sadly no longer by the sea, and which depends on the ink of octopi as its main industry. Markson and Snicket were called there to steal an object and return it to its rightful owners, but there’s confusion around every corner. This book will be popular with those who enjoyed Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events and the Name of this Book is Secret Series. Few questions are answered in this volume and it seems like only more questions after finishing.
ISBN:0316123080 258 perplexing pages Middle Grades 5-8
Recommended by: Alice Cyphers, Librarian, Pennsylvania, USA.
******
Lemony Snicket is back with a new faux memoir that focuses on wordplay, which here means he breaks in the narrative to define large words and complex phrases. In this first installment of a new series, Lemony Snicket, a twelve year old apprentice detective, gets involved in one too many mysteries and makes a few too many promises. Although the first assignment seems straightforward, the recovery of a stolen grotesque statue that may or may not be worth a great deal of money, no one is who they seem in the quiet town of Stain’d-by-the-Sea. Full of quirky characters, untrustworthy adults with hidden motivations, excellent illustrations by Seth, and Snicket’s characteristic wit, this detective novel will satisfy those that like humor mixed in with their crime. While there are plenty of loose threads still hanging at the end of this mystery, fans of The Series of Unfortunate Events will race to pick up this new series starter.
Recommended by Carrie Shaurette, New York City Librarian, USA
