A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Reptile Room

Children’s book series about three hapless orphans

I was reading my review of the first book in this series, and I actually cannot believe it has been almost three years since I wrote that review. As is often the case, I was scrounging around for short books to read at the end of last year to meet my reading goal, and I thought I’d pick the series back up. The hardcover editions of the series are really lovely with deckle edges and eerie illustrations.

“The Reptile Room” by Lemony Snicket is the second book of the 13 that make up “A Series of Unfortunate Events”. After things end rather badly with Count Olaf, the Baudelaire children are sent to live instead with Dr Montgomery Montgomery, a world renowned herpetologist who lives in a wonderful large house housing countless species of reptile. The children warm to him immediately, and prepare to accompany him on his next expedition to Peru. However, when Uncle Monty hires Stephano, the new assistant is strangely familiar to the children.

I enjoyed this book a lot more than the first. Uncle Monty is a lovable character who is as oblivious as he is brilliant, and I thought his profession and the way the reptiles are woven into the story made it for a much more interesting read.

The adults are still pretty useless in this book, and I will stress that this is a book for a particular age group.

I’ve been finding it interesting actually watching the Netflix television series, episode by episode after reading the books. The series has drawn very heavily from the books, but has given the audience a little more of the over-arching story. It is a bit of a different experience, but if you’re keen to get your kids reading, getting them into both the books and the TV show might not be a bad idea.