THE AUSTERE ACADEMY BY LEMONY SNICKET

The Austere Academy is the fifth novel in the series of books entitled A Series of Unfortunate Events.

The plot involves a tall, thin and evil character named Count Olaf going on a wild goose chase in various disguises to try and find the three  Baudelaire children and steal their inherited fortune – in this book disguised as a tough, cruel PE teacher named Coach Genghis. These three clever children, Violet age 14, Klaus age 13 and Sunny who is round about just 1 or 2 years old, had a big shock to their wealthy life.  As one normal day they receive a message from a banker named Mr Poe, who tells them their parents are dead.

This series of books plays around with time frame.  The general feeling for the book is the 1920’s – 30’s yet often modern day technology is used:  for example in The Austere Academy there is a highly advanced computer system.

The schools motto : Memento Mori is Latin for ‘Remember you will die’, The book deals with dark themes (for example death, black humour) in a gothic fiction genre which is funny and makes the reader laugh.  As the exam period starts Coach Genghis makes the three children tired out by running 100 laps of the field for nine continuous days in the hopes they will get tired and fail their exams so that they would be expelled from Prufrock Preparatory School and he can get his hands on the children and their enormous fortune. At the end of this book the Baudelaires escape from Count Olaf/Coach Genghis disguised as their classmates, Duncan and Isadora Quagmire who have been through a similar story.

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