Lemony Snicket’s alleged comeback

The famous young adult author has an entirely new series that no one seems to knows about

By Rupinder Suman

Lemony Snicket has been part of my childhood ever since elementary school. Around ten years old, I clearly remember reading his extremely successful series, “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” which revolves around the misfortunes of the three Baudelaire orphans who are constantly terrorized by their distant relative, Count Olaf. The series includes a total of thirteen books published from beginning to end from 1999 to 2006, respectively. A film adaptation was also released in 2004 starring Jim Carrey as Count Olaf. However, only the first three books were captured in the film. An interesting aspect of the books is that Lemony Snicket narrates the books. Another interesting fact is that Lemony Snicket is a pen name and the author’s actual name is Daniel Handler. I did not know this until I was a lot older and I was kind of disappointed since Lemony Snicket is such a cool name to have.

Lemony Snicket has been off the radar since the end of his widely successful series. Or so I thought. I came to know that on October 23rd, 2012 the first book from his new series, “All the Wrong Questions,” was published. This series is a prequel to “A Series of Unfortunate Events.” However, the Baudelaire orphans will not be a part of the storyline. I was quite disappointed when I discovered this because I definitely wanted to know what events led to the Baudelaire children becoming parent-less and abandoned.

His new series instead revolves around the life of his previous series’ narrator, Lemony Snicket and his adventures as a roadster working for the V.F.D., a secret organization. V.F.D. presumably stands for “Volunteer Fire Department” and this organization was also an integral part of the first series. The deceased parents of the Baudelaire children were supposedly a part of this secret organization and mysteriously their involvement with this organization may have ultimately led to their death. Although the Baudelaire’s will not be a part of Handler’s new series, the storytelling is very similar to that of “A Series of Unfortunate Events.” There is a lot of gritty imagery and sinister themes that were also present in his first published series.

I will most likely read Handler’s new series, but before that I will reacquaint myself with the “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” and read the entire thirteen books with hopefully a new perspective. The series are widely available from the kindle store to many bookstores throughout the country. Yes, bookstores still exist. The second book from Handler’s new series was published last year and he is currently working on the third installment. If you want to reconnect with a childhood favorite, re-read his first series but also check out the new one because it is similar in many ways and may garner the same success as the first series. If nothing else, at least you now know he actually has not disappeared into the shadows but is still a dedicated young adult author who continues to write.