Product Description

Dear Reader,

If you are looking for a story about cheerful youngsters spending a jolly time at boarding school, look elsewhere. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire arc intelligent and resourceful children, and you might expect that they would do very well at school. Don't. For the Baudelaires, school turns out to be another miserable episode in their unlucky lives.

Truth be told, within the chapters that make up this dreadful story, the children will face snapping crabs, strict punishments, dripping fungus, comprehensive exams, violin recitals, S.O.R.E., and the metric system.

It is my solemn duty to stay up all night researching and writing the history of these three hapless youngsters, but you may be more comfortable getting a good night's sleep. In that case, you should probably choose some other book.

With all due respect,
Lemony Snicket

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9541 in Books
• Published on: 2000-08-31
• Released on: 2000-08-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780064408639
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
As the three Baudelaire orphans warily approach their new home--Prufrock Preparatory School--they can't help but notice the enormous stone arch bearing the school's motto Memento Mori, or "Remember you will die." This is not a cheerful greeting, and certainly marks an inauspicious beginning to a very bleak story. Of course, this is what we have come to expect from 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

From School Library Journal
Grade 4-7-In this fifth entry in the saga of the three Baudelaire children, the siblings are sent to a boarding school where they are tormented because they are orphans. There is the usual array of stupid/evil adults including the ridiculous Vice Principal Nero, who mimics everything that Klaus and Violet say and employs baby Sunny as his secretary because she is too young to attend class. Brown-nosing brats like Carmelita Spats make the children's lives even more miserable. The ending is a cliff-hanger as the evil Count Olaf, disguised as Coach Genghis, the new gym teacher, drives off with the orphans' only friends. In these days of Harry Potter, this book is a pesky nuisance, with little plot to drive it, situations that fall short of being interesting or off-the-wall, and cardboard characters. The author strains to be eccentric and his constant interruptions in the narrative to define a word or phrase are jarring at best.
Ann Cook, Winter Park Public Library, FL
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Gr. 4-6. The Beaudelaire orphans enroll as students at Prufrock Academy in the fifth Series of Unfortunate Events book. The Academy, run by nasty, mimicking Vice Principal Nero, is shaped like a large tombstone, and the perpetually unlucky Violet, Klaus, and Sunny must stay in a tin shack with biting crabs, dripping tan fungus, and green walls decorated with tiny green hearts. Series followers will be keeping their eye out for evil Count Olaf in one of his disguises, and the author doesn't disappoint. Snicket once again uses comical word definitions in the text ("the phrase 'impressionable age' here means 'ten and eight years old, respectively'), and just when things seem a little too predictable, Count Olaf makes off with the Beaudelaire's new friends, the Quagmire orphans, so setting things up for book six. Kids not familiar with the previous books will also enjoy this. REVWR
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Best So Far In Series
I have to admit as much as I've enjoyed these books, by the fourth I was getting a little bored. The structure would stay the same, the victims names would just change. I was so glad then to find the fifth book expanding and bringing in new characters who look like they could be around in future books. Mr Poe packs Violet, Klaus , and Sunny off to a horrible boarding school that has ridiculous rules. Of course you wait to see when the evil Count Olaf will rear his head, but the distraction in the book comes from the addition of two children the same age as Violet and Klaus who become their friends. It gives the series new places to go and breaks the normal story outlines. It's also the longest so far but for me it read the fastest. If you've liked the other books in the series you can be sure you'll like this one as well.

Bleak, depressing, and wonderful...
The Austere Academy, fifth in A Series of Unfortunate Events, will not disappoint fans of the books. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire are stuck at a nightmarish boarding school, where they are made to live in a shack that includes territorial crabs, a strange tan fungus, and truly hideous wallpaper. Added to this are incredibly dull classes and a headmaster who cannot play the violin but insists on doing so anyway...for six hours a night at an all-school concert. If only these were the worst of the Baudelaires' problems, they could finally consider themselves lucky. But, alas, the fiendish Count Olaf has tracked them down yet again. Once again the Baudelaires must try to discover his evil plan in time to save themselves and their fortune. Along the way there are more clues about Lemony Snicket's mysterious lady love, the charming and beautiful but unfortunately deceased Beatrice...A great read, but be warned that the ending is a cliffhanger that will leave you feeling very impatient to get your hands on the next volume!

Oh oh oh! I am frightened of Count Olaf!
I have read all the Series of Unfortunate Events books. They are all very good! But I am scared of Count Olaf. He always creeps up and tries to kidnap the Baudelaire orphans, and no one believes them when they say he is in disguise, so they have to stop him themselves. I am glad the Baudelaire orphans are so resourceful and brave, because I would be *very* frightened of Count Olaf. Oh oh oh! Isn't that him there in those fake mutton-chop whiskers and the cowboy hat? Look OUT, Baudelaire orphans! Look out! Oh, I must close the book now and go lie down for a bit to recover from the fright he always gives me.