This book was extremely frustrating. The Baudelaires can't find anyone else to watch them, so they are taken to a pilot program of a village taking care of children (after the saying "It takes a village to raise a child"). First of all, where are all the parents' friends? Are they really all dead too? What the heck?
The village is the Village of Fowl Devotees (Oh I forgot to mention in the 5th book, V.F.D. is a secret code that the Baudelaires learned about. However they know nothing about it so they signed up for the village called "V.F.D."Anyway.) because they are obsessed with the crows that roost in their town. EVERYWHERE. The elders in this village have a million rules, including no mechanical tools, no books that talk about breaking any of the rules, and most importantly do NOT hurt a crow. The punishment for breaking a rule is being burnt at the stake. Even though the village signed up for the program, none of the elders wanted to house or feed the children. So they are sent to live with Hector the handyman, who just happens to have all the banned tools and books behind his house. His problem is that he is too skittish around the Elders to speak up to them ever.
When the Baudelaires go to Hector's house, he shows them something that he found by the tree outside his house. It is a couplet, written by Isadora Quagmire! The Baudelaires are convinced that they are in the village, and want to find them. They are in charge of all the chores in the village, so they work with Hector. On their first day, they find out the Elders have kidnapped Count Olaf. Which was SUPER shocking.
However, when they go to the courtroom they see that it is not Count Olaf but another man who happens to look like him and have the same tattoo. His name is Jacques Snicket, and he knew the Baudelaires' parents. They wanted to hear from Jacques, but find out the next morning that he was murdered. The detective for the case was guess who? OLAF. He says that the children were the ones who killed "Olaf", which means they were going to be burned at the stake. They are put in prison, because Hector won't stand up for them against the Elders.
The children somehow figure out that the bread and water they have will act as a sponge and help break down the brick on the wall. They work all night on it, and break out using their bench just before they are supposed to be burned. While they are talking about the poems that they had found from Isadora, they realize the Quagmire triplets are hidden in the new fountain in town. They break them out, and find Hector finishing up his invention. It is a self sustaining hot air balloon. Duncan and Isadora begin climbing, but before the Baudelaires can climb up the rope ladder Esme (who was disguised as the new chief of police) shoots the ladder with a harpoon gun. The Baudelaires fall and run away.
This book is super frustrating because they can't catch a break. Nobody stands up for them, they are just pushed around, and they find their friends AGAIN to have them leave. This time they left with a nice (but spineless) man. So it is a lot of the same as the other books, but for some reason it really bugged me this time.
No comments:
Post a Comment