The Vile Village
By Lemony Snicket
HarperCollins, $9.95
ISBN 0064408655

Buy or borrow this book! Support your local independent bookseller Find it in a WorldCat library Compare prices at major online bookstores

Send this review to a friend

You are undoubtedly reading this review by mistake. If I were you, I would immediately close this paper, shred it and use it for the bottom of your parrot's cage.

But you persist.

This dreadful downer is the seventh dull entry of the tales of the bad-luck stricken Baudelaire orphans, Violet, Klaus and Sunny. Once again these children are trying to escape the clutches of their former guardian, the mysterious Count Olaf, who is after their immense amount of money. (If you are wondering how they were orphaned, I will spare you the agony of reading the first book. Their parents died as their mansion spontaneously and mysteriously combusted.)

This time they are living in the crow-covered town of V.F.D. This town has been advertised in a colorful brochure as a welcoming, jolly, healthy place for orphans. Of course, things are never what they should be in Mr. Snicket's predictably pitiful tales.

The children spend their days living a boring life. They cut hedges, learn the many rules of the town, wash the brand new town fountain and eat Mexican food. Also, they are forced to attend the daily Council of Elders meetings where townspeople are accused of such crimes as putting too many nuts on the Elders' sundaes or killing a crow for its feathers or writing with pens that are not made of crow feathers. The punishment for breaking any of these laws is an ordinary burning at the stake.

But, as always, Count Olaf is lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce on the children and snatch away their money. And as with the previous six tiring tales, the children use their combined brainpower (and Sunny's four sharp teeth) to try to thwart the treacherous Count Olaf.

If you have just gotten away from 50 mad hyenas and you don't have any bellybutton lint to pick, or if you are locked inside a warehouse with only a flashlight and the first six books in A Series of Unfortunate Events, I suggest you try and read The Vile Village. I just hope you don't die of boredom.

Caldwell Akers, 11, is an avid reader who has devoured (quite literally) the seven dreadful books of Mr. Lemony Snicket. In his spare time, he rots his mind watching television.