A Series of Unfortunate Events – The Carnivorous Carnival

Lemony Snicket's The Carnivorous Carnival is a darkly funny adventure for 10 year olds in which the Baudelaire orphans hide in plain sight at a very shabby carnival.

What happens

It's the ninth book in A Series of Unfortunate Events. It opens with Violet, Klaus and Sunny squashed into the boot of Count Olaf's car (not where you'd choose to travel with your worst enemy).

The car stops at the Caligari Carnival, miles from anywhere. Olaf has come to see a fortune-teller called Madame Lulu, who seems to know where the children are every time they get away.

So the Baudelaires try something new. They borrow Olaf's own disguises. Violet and Klaus squeeze into one enormous shirt and one pair of trousers as a person with two heads. Sunny wraps herself in a fake beard and becomes Chabo the Wolf Baby. Then they ask for jobs in the House of Freaks!

Watching them try to eat corn on the cob with one hand each, while Olaf sits at the same table, is funny and nerve-racking all at once. (Sunny just growls and bites a fork.)

The narrator is as gloomy as ever. He warns you to put the book down and escape while you still can. He stops to explain words in his own peculiar way. It's a huge part of the fun.

Underneath all that, the Baudelaires are really struggling. The whole world thinks they're criminals, and they're desperate to find out whether one of their parents might have survived. When Violet cries down the phone to an operator who never answers, it's quietly heartbreaking.

One thing to be aware of. The House of Freaks is a cruel place, and the villains laugh at people who are born looking different. The book is clearly on the children's side (Klaus explains exactly why it's wrong), but a reader who gets stared at might find those pages uncomfortable. Olaf's gang also chat about hurting children as if it's nothing.

If your reader loves clever children outwitting awful grown-ups, and doesn't mind things staying gloomy, they'll be glued to it.

What to read next

If they haven't read the series from the start, The Bad Beginning is where it all goes wrong for the three Baudelaires, on a grey morning at Briny Beach.