Pages

Sunday, January 02, 2005

Out of the Mouths of Babes

About the only thing I worry about in reviewing books is making a mistake, and someone writing a nasty letter about it. I have nothing to do with the review, but I found this in the letters to bookworld section of the Washington Post online:


A Series of Unfortunate Errors

I am a fourth-grade student who enjoys reading the "Series of Unfortunate Events" books by Lemony Snicket. I recently read your snippet about the new one, The Grim Grotto (Book World, Washington Is Also Reading, Dec. 12), where I found some errors. You wrote, "Ah, the poor Baudelaire twins. This 11th installment of Snicket's positively bleak and astonishingly droll series finds the twins clambering aboard a submarine, hoping its odd crew can help them in their quest to outwit the monstrous Count Olaf." There are two problems with this. One: There are three kids, not two, so they can't be twins. Two: They are all different ages. Sunny is a baby, Klaus is 13, and Violet is 14. The reader would only have to read the first chapter of the first book, The Bad Beginning, to know their ages. Just letting you know.

BEN

Annandale, Va.


You go, Ben from Annandale!

Excelsior.

3 comments:

LadyLitBlitzin said...

Good for Ben! I think that's great. (Even though those occasional nasty emails I get from readers at work sometimes give me nightmares, but hey.)

Jen said...

I love it when the Post gets schooled.

Hebdomeros said...

I just like it when kids school adults.