I started Book 1 when it came out and it was just too dreary and Roald Dahl-ishly sadistic for me. (Harry Potter started that way too, but thank goodness that aspect has been shrinking from book to book.) But my little sister loves them, and my stepmother recommended Book 6 specifically (The Ersatz Elevator) for its humor. I enjoyed #6 quite a bit and asked Elisabeth (my sister, who’s not really little anymore–she’s 12!) to tell me which was the next-funniest. AA has good moments (I love the school’s motto being Memento mori), but not great ones. The gimmicks get beaten into the ground. Baby Sunny’s single-word sentences (” ‘Ivoser,” Sunny said, which meant something like ‘I bet I can use my four sharp teeth to scrape the paint away and make the walls a bit less ugly’ “) were mildly funny once, but they recur dozens of times in each book. On the other hand, the satire is good (esepcially the crazy adults, like egotistic violin nut Vice Principal Nero who mimicks everything the children say), the language inventive (“cake-sniffers” is a great epithet), and poor Sunny working as an administrative assistant who has to make her own staples is very funny. The Baudelaire orphans are decent, brave, and resilient. What will happen in the end, I wonder? (Will there ever be an end? Aha, I see 13 are planned.) Will we find out the full story of Beatrice? Elisabeth pointed out the pattern of the dedications, which I hadn’t noticed before. This one is “For Beatrice–You will always be in my heart, in my mind, and in your grave.” Thanks, Elisabeth!