I was inspired to read this book by the reviews written by The Library of Babel, Outside of a Dog and Pam's Book Log, among others. I'm not too proud to jump on the occasional bandwagon, even when I have to run very fast to catch up to it.

The Bad Beginning is a charming children's book about the terrible things that befall the Baudelaire children -- Violet (14), Klaus (12) and Sunny (an infant). The book begins on a dreary day at Briny Beach, where Mr. Poe, a friend of their father, informs the children that their house has burned down and their parents are dead. They temporarily stay with the Poes, who buy them ugly, itchy clothing and aren't all that sympathetic to their loss (the Poe children complain that they are far too sad to play with). But then things get far worse when the children are sent to live with Count Olaf, a relative who they have never met and who has designs on their large fortune.

The narrator's voice is wonderfully waggish, and the tone works for an adult reader (I assume it would also work for kids, but since I don't have one handy I cannot be sure of that). Consider Snicket's introduction of Violet:

Violet Baudelaire, the eldest, liked to skip rocks. Like most fourteen-year-olds, she was right-handed, so the rocks skipped farther across the murky water when Violet used her right hand than when she used her left. As she skipped rocks, she was looking out at the horizon and thinking about an invention she wanted to build. Anyone who knew Violet well could tell she was thinking hard because her long hair was tied up in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes. Violet had a real knack for inventing and building strange devices, so her brain was often filled with images of pulleys, levers and gears and she never wanted to be distracted by something as trivial as her hair. This morning she was thinking about a device that could retrieve a rock after you had skipped it into the ocean.

The book was a very quick read (about 20-30 minutes) so I was very glad I checked it out of the library -- it would not have been worth the purchase price ($6.59 from amazon) since I doubt I will reread it.