The Austere Academy continues Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events, the deliciously morbid set of books that began with The Bad Beginning and only got worse.

In The Austere Academy, Violet, Klaus and Sunny are at first optimistic--attending school is a welcome change for the book-loving trio, and the academy is allegedly safe from the dreaded Count Olaf, who is after their fortune. Hope dissipates quickly, however, when they meet Vice Principal Nero, a self-professed genius violinist who sneeringly imitates their every word. More dreadful still, he houses them in the tin Orphans Shack, crawling with toe-biting crabs and dripping with a mysterious tan fungus. A beam of light shines through the despair when the Baudelaires meet the Quagmires, two of three orphaned triplets who are no strangers to disaster and sympathize with their predicament. When Count Olaf appears on the scene disguised as Coach Genghis (covering his monobrow with a turban and his ankle tattoo with expensive running shoes), the Quagmires resolve to come to the aid of their new friends. Sadly, this proves to be a hideous mistake.

Snicket disarms us again with his playful juxtapositions--only he can compare bombs with strawberry shortcake (both are as dangerous to make as assumptions), muse on how babies adjust developmentally to the idea of curtains, or ponder why the Baudelaire orphans would not want to be stalks of celery despite their incessant bad luck as humans. We can't get enough of this splendid series of misadventures, and can only wager that swarms of young readers will be right next to us in line for the next installment. (Ages 9 and older) --Karin Snelson, Amazon.com.

2008-02-03 GOOD

this book is one of my favorite story's out of the whole series.
After the terrible gaurdians the Baudelaires had already had ,m.r Poe once more finds himself incharge of the Baudelaires guardians.
This time he decides to take them to a boarding school hoping that This time the orphans would find them selves at home.
But he was wrong,of course !!!!!!
Count olaf is once again desguising him self as some one else.
His desguise was useless of coarse the baudelaires had known their new gym teacher was infact the evil count that had been trying to steal their fortune right from the moment they set their eyes upon him.
But when Coach Genius had got them running laps they had,had enouth.
With the stuck up Camilla Spats the Quagmire triplets were the only people who could cheer the Baudelaire orphans up and out of their misery.
But does count Olaf get away with the Baudelaires fortune after all or do the Quagmire triplets and the Baudelaire orphans reach the end of their misery.
Why dont you read the book and find out what happend.