The Carnivorous Carnival

I've now conquered Book the 9th of Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events. I started reading this series in order to make sure it was appropriate for my then 2nd grader. He's pretty sensitive to scary things in his media and I was afraid the unfortunate events might be too much. But he and I are both enjoying the books. I probably like them even more than he does. But I'm making myself read them at his pace, so it will probably be sometime in the coming year before I read The End.

One of my favorite things about these books is how the author uses vocabulary and phrases that might not be familiar to a kid but then defines them right in the book. For example, in this book there's a discussion of the phrase "in the belly of the beast" which means "inside some terrible place with little chance of escaping safely." I would highly recommend this series for grade school aged children. They would also be excellent to read out loud.