A Series of Unfortunate Events #3: The Wide Window

by Lemony Snicket

Book Overview

NOW A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES

Dear Reader,

If you have not read anything about the Baudelaire orphans, then before you read even one more sentence, you should know this: Violet, Klaus, and Sunny are kindhearted and quick-witted, but their lives, I am sorry to say, are filled with bad luck and misery. All of the stories about these three children are unhappy and wretched, and this one may be the worst of them all. If...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0064407683
• ISBN13: 9780064407687
• Release Date: February 2000
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.71 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.2" x 7.1"
• Age Range: 8 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 3 to 7

Customer Reviews

Did not receive this book

I did not receive this book and was charged. It also says it was shipped and received by me but it was not.

Tragedy follows...

"The Wide Window" is in my view the most sad and tragic of all the books in Lemony Snicket's "A Series of Unfortunate Events" centered on the life of the orphans Violet, Klaus, and Sunny. In book the third the Baudelairs are taken by their lawyer Mr.Poe to live with Aunt Josephine at her house on the top of the mountain at Lake Lachrymose, home of the venomous Lachrymose Leeches. Aunt Josephine is scared of everything and expects diaster to always be around the corner. She thinks she will get burned by using the stove so the Baudelairs have to settle with the most awful cold cucumber soup they have ever tasted. Plus Aunt Josephine loves nothing more than grammar and constantly corrects the orphans mistakes. However Violet, Klaus, and Sunny are thankful that Count Olaf hasn't appeared in the quiet Lake Lachrymose yet. Their luck doesn't last long. It seems this time Count Olaf disguises himself as Captain Sham a sea captain!!! He totally fools Aunt Josephine but not the Baudelairs! Mysteriously Aunt Josephine seems to have commited suicide after a phone call to Captain Sham and has left the children under his care! Can the Baudelair orphans foil his evil plans once again?I found this book to be very sad even though it was still hilirous. Lemony Snicket truly works his magic in these books. I can't wait to read his autobiography!

With a name like Lemony Snicket, how could this book be bad?

Hooray for the Series of Unfortunate Events! This is definitely one of my favorite series (if not my favorite). I love the funny ways the author words his sentences, makes fun of adults, and breaks almost every rule in the "Good Writing Tips" section of my grammar book. In this third book, the three unfortunate orphans are visiting their Aunt Josephine, who is afraid of everything, especially realtors. But, of course, evil Count Olaf (Boo! Hiss!) catches up with them, and Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire have to thwart his next plan to get their fortune. But the main question is, will Aunt Josephine survive the ordeal? Or will she discover the same fate as Uncle Monty in the previous book?I didn't think this book was as good as the first two, but I still love it, think it's great, and give it five stars. Hopefully, you will too, and if you do, some other books similar to "The Wide Window" are "Matilda" by Roald Dahl, "The Twin in the Tavern" by Barbara Brooks Wallace, and "Half Magic" by Edward Eager.

Humorous, Entertaining, and Charming

After having read Daniel Handler's books, I learned from some casual web surfing about his pseudonym Lemony Snicket. Having read just The Wide Window, I would say that I now want to read the rest of the Lemony Snicket books. As an adult, I found this book charming and humorous. The Baudelaire orphans are amusing, particularly little Sunny of the super-sharp teeth. This book was not a long complicated read like Harry Potter books, but it was full of great humor and some suspense. I think that this type of book would delight most children who enjoyed books with a sly sense of humor. As well there is an education value as this book uses some "vocabulary words" that kids might not know, but then immediately defines these words. After reading this one, I now want to go out and get the whole series so far.

Snicket's best, so far

As far as "darkness" or "inappropriateness" for youngsters goes, I tried reading *The Bad Beginning* to my 7-year-old a while ago and he begged off after one chapter, saying that it made him feel too sad; but the other day he took it off the shelf and -- on his own -- is now half-way through "Book the Second" of this series, *The Reptile Room.* I'm happy to report that he has a real treat in store when he turns to this volume of the Baudelaire orphan's adventures, for it is easily the best of the lot. Longer than either of its predecessors, it is also more relaxed and assured -- not that the pace is slack (far from it), it's simply that Snicket is more at home with his bag of tricks and is beginning to manipulate his deliberately limited, muted palette with a master's verve. Fearful, grammar-haunted Aunt Josephine is a wonderful, painfully funny addition to the improbable constellation of distant "family" through which it is the Baudelaire's sad fate to pass, and her second most notable quirk bears an interesting relationship to Snicket's own frequent definitions of "big words." This last feature seems to bother a lot of people, but I think these folks are trying to bully something which is primarily an *aesthetic* device of great flexibility into an overly-rigid pedagogical frame. These books aren't nasty things which are -- like certain exilirs --nevertheless good for you, they're wonderfully entertaining works of verbal art, and if one had to troll their depths for messages, one would find, cumulatively, that these have more to do with self-reliance and competence than with any of the hideous treatment the Baudelaire's endure or the corpses that are left in their wake.

Cleverly written dark, funny tale

I will agree with the comparison to Edward Gorey, this is definitly a great series for fans of his dark hilarious work. I work in a book store and this series has lately been our latest addiction. Sad & dismel yes, but the clever wrting by Mr Snicket keeps the reader from despair. Wonderful quick reads for the "adults" who grew up with a black sense of humor.