Book the fifth in this sombre series about the Baudelaires’ lives. They attend the worst school imaginable under the worst violin-playing vice principal, and with the worst scheme of Count Olaf’s yet.

Read: Oct 21, 2024

Genre: Absurdist Fiction, Dark Comedy
Audience: Children
Book contains: mistreatment of children, horrible education system, mentioned death, greed, scheming

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The Worst School I’ve Ever Heard Of

Since Mr. Poe doesn’t have a lot of time, he decides to send the Baudelaire orphans to a boarding school until he can find them another guardian. Unfortunately, the only school willing to take them at such short notice is Prufrock Preparatory School, where Violet and Klaus will be in different classes, Sunny will be working as a secretary, and they will face unfair punishments for the most absurd reasons. At least the “advanced computer system” will keep them safe from Count Olaf.

I remembered that this is the book in which the Baudelaires meet the Quagmires, so I was especially excited to jump into this book. So far, they’ve only ever interacted with horrible or dimwitted adults, so it’s about time that they meet some people their own age.

Lemony Snicket is our storyteller once again, defining words and phrases and he narrates the dreary lives of the Baudelaire children. Sometimes he goes off on tangents to better illustrate just how horrible their lives are, which is quite entertaining.

For this book, I found Tori (or V) on YouTube. She has streamed all of the books so far, each in three parts. I listened along while stitching notebook covers, and while I found it a bit annoying that she took so many breaks between chapters to respond to comments on the stream, it was quite an enjoyable experience.

Violet, Klaus, and Sunny are dropped off at school by the ever-unhelpful Mr. Poe, who can only be trusted to always have a cough. The two oldest are now in school, though it’s not an enjoyable experience for them. Their only lucky break is meeting Duncan and Isadora Quagmire, two triplets who also lost their parents (and their brother) in a fire. It was a delight getting to know the two Quagmires, who are eager to help their new friends when Count Olaf inevitably rears his ugly head.

The growing relationship with their new friends is inspiring, and I especially love how they so perfectly connect with Violet and Klaus. Isadora loves poetry, so she and Klaus bond over a love of language, while Duncan (who takes lots of notes and wants to be a reporter) bonds with Violet (who loves inventing things). The triplets are also the only other characters who actually try to learn to decipher what Sunny is saying.

This book was written with dark humour throughout. The adults are either actively hostile or are superbly out of their depth, and it seems very much that the children are on their own in their bad situation. The syntax is engaging and fun, making it easy and entertaining for children to learn new, more complex words.

The pacing is pretty quick, as are most children’s books. You get an immediate sense of the story and where it’s going, and while there’s a bit of mystery throughout, it’s not a dense tale, and only adds to the growing, overarching plot of the series.

A definite win in this series! I loved reading The Austere Academy and highly recommend continuing this series with the next book: The Ersatz Elevator.

Related Reviews:

A Series of Unfortunate Events Book 1: The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket
A Series of Unfortunate Events Book 2: The Reptile Room by Lemony Snicket
A Series of Unfortunate Events Book 3: The Wide Window by Lemony Snicket
A Series of Unfortunate Events Book 4: The Miserable Mill by Lemony Snicket
A Series of Unfortunate Events Book 5: The Austere Academy by Lemony Snicket
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