Nom de Plume

Granted, I’m not a kid–but I love kiddie lit and I think Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events SUCKS. Perhaps it’s intended for younger audiences than most of the kiddie lit I like, but there was a 12 year old on the plane to Chicago who was reading them. His mother said he loved the series. And he’s not alone; kids everywhere are sucking the Unfortunate Events up like they’re kool-aid with extra sugar. But I found the 1.5 books I read boring, repetitive, pendantic–and rather plotless.

I guess this is underscored because I also recently discovered a new kiddie lit author I really like. Diane Duane and her Young Wizards series, which is fantabulous, typifies good children’s literature. Like an updated Madeleine L’Engle, or a slightly more hip Phillip Pullman, there are elements of good and evil that drive the plot along. Her characters are believable, unlike Snicket’s characters who are bland archetypes. And not to say that using archetypes isn’t effective, that it shouldn’t be done, but if the story’s not strong enough to make you overlook the cardboard dimensions of the character, it simply doesn’t work.

But for some reason, it IS working. Why are the books so popular? After all, Snicket himself warns that nothing good happens to his characters. There is no hope for redemption because the three orphans who are shunted from guardian to guardian and pursued by the same Count Olaf have the same story repeated–as far as I can tell–from book to book. The only difference is a different setting and a few new characters (who themselves fall into predictable categories, replacing the person in the preceding book). And beyond redemption, it’s the same story recycled over and over again. What’s the point in that?

I think the series is rather like television sitcoms: the same stupid gags for the same laughs. Or in this case, groans of despair. Or the same video game in which the protagonists progress to the next level by avoiding the enemy. I admit to a bias in thinking that literature should make you think. This is mindless drivel. More than that, I find it sad that a 12 year old should find these books entertaining because it speaks to a lack of imagination.