A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Wide Window

The third instalment in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Wide Window is another chapter in the sad and miserable Baudelaire tale and is filled with more memorable characters, a new guardian, cold foods, extreme weather conditions, and carnivorous leeches. 

Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire find themselves with yet another new guardian, a woman named Aunt Josephine whose passion is grammar and is afraid of almost everything. Although their time with her is not comfortable, the children remind themselves that it could always be worse. But worse arrives with gusto as a villain in disguise and a person that cannot be distinguished as either a man or a woman turn up to make the Baudelaire’s lives all the more miserable. 

By now, we all the get the basic gist of series: each new story sees the Baudelaire children with a new guardian and Count Olaf tracking them down with a new plan to steal their fortune, always in a new form of disguise. 

What I don’t think I’ve mentioned before in my reviews of this series is the interesting little illustrations that begin each new chapter. At the beginning of every new chapter, and sometimes during the chapter, a little illustration can be seen that gives the reader a hint as to what might be contained within the following chapter. I have to say that these illustrations are done really well, they are very intriguing and their style adds to the miserable atmosphere of the books. If Tim Burton were a novelist, I imagine he would have subtle little illustrations just like these beginning each of the chapters in his books; quirky, but at the same time rather artistic. 

This book gives us a little more insight into how clever and intellectual the Baudelaire children are, I won’t tell you how, because that would be a massive spoiler, but amidst the central drama, a little cryptic intellect goes a long way. 

Filled with extreme weather, cold foods, carnivorous leeches, unappetising cheeseburgers, an unpleasant man, a frightened woman, and peppermints, The Wide Window is another quick and engaging read from Lemony Snicket, author and chronicler of the Baudelaire’s series of unfortunate events.