The story, The Bad Beginning, takes place in the heart of a polluted, hectic city and in the quiet, peaceful neighborhood of Count Olaf.

This setting is very significant because it is where the Baudelaire children abide when their relative Count Olaf adopts them.

The protagonists in the story are the unfortunate Violet and Klaus Baudelaire who were now orphans and were very gloomy when their parents got killed in a raging fire that also destroyed their beloved mansion.

Violet Baudelaire is a very intelligent girl who only thinks about inventing tools to help her when she needs something handy.

For example, right-handed Violet invented a grappling hook to save her sister Sunny from a dangling cage hanging from a tower.

Klaus Baudelaire is also very clever like her sister, but loves to read any kind of book, especially books about tide pool animals, to help him with him dilemmas.

For example, Klaus had to read a very extensive law book in one day to figure out Count Olaf’s evil plan.

In the story, The Bad Beginning, Violet and Klaus struggle against another character, the antagonist, Count Olaf.

Count Olaf is a very bony and tall man who is somehow related to the Baudelaire children and lives in a ridiculously poor and filthy house with images of eyes all over the place.

This despicable man is never mindful about anything and everything except stealing the Baudelaire fortune.

He is not a very lonesome man because he has a copious amount of friends which come from his theater troupe, but who are people who have the same gruesome personality as Count Olaf.

For example, when Count Olaf’s troupe was at his horrible house, a dreadful man with hook-hands came to Count Olaf and suggested to steal the Baudelaire’s great fortune.

In the story, the supporting character is Justice Strauss who is an elderly but wise woman who also works as a judge and lives in her beautiful house next to the evil Count Olaf.

This pleasant lady is always eager to help anyone in any situation, and especially loves the Baudelaire kids.

For example, Justice was very thoughtful when she let the intelligent Baudelaire orphans visit her amazing library, and even wanted to adopt the children when Count Olaf could not help any longer.

Justice Strauss is crucial to the story because she greatly helps the orphans with all their predicaments.

In the story, The Bad Beginning, the event when the Baudelaire children's parents die in a hazardous fire triggers the conflict, and is also the inciting force.

When Violet, Klaus, and Sunny’s parents die, Mr. Poe, a good friend of theirs, take the children to the closest relative they have in the area, Count Olaf.

Later, Count Olaf discovers that the Baudelaire orphans will inherit their massive fortune when Violet comes of age, and then mischievously plans to steal it.

In the story the main dilemma is when Count Olaf attempts to steal the Baudelaire fortune by using his tricky schemes.

Count Olaf then plans a play with his evil theater troupe and the orphans, and in one scene he and Violet get married.

This villain later asks Justice Strauss, a real judge, to say the real wedding lines from a law book to be more realistic, but Count Olaf actually wants to marry Violet just to get hold of the Baudelaire’s great fortune.

The plot of the story is solved at the theater when Count Olaf just married Violet and announced it to the audience.

Everybody gets mad, and Judge Justice Strauss tells the children that Count Olaf now has control over the money and there was nothing they could do about it.

But as everybody was about to leave the play, Klaus and Violet revealed their plan: Violet signed her name on the document with her left hand, when she was supposed to write with her own hand, which was her right.

That meant that Violet was not legally married to Count Olaf, and that it stopped the evil Count Olaf from stealing the Baudelaire fortune.

The moral lesson in the story is if you work together, everything is possible.

This characteristic is shown when Violet and Klaus all joined together to solve their complicated dilemma.

Klaus helped out by reading the long and boring law book to find out Count Olaf’s plan, while Violet cooperated by using her inventing skills to build a grappling hook to rescue Sunny from falling.

My favorite scene in the story, The Bad Beginning, is when the Baudelaire children went in Justice Strauss’ abode for the first time.

Although it was not very large, Justice’s house was very tidy and beautiful.

Mrs. Strauss’ house also had a library with all kinds of books, from law to biographies, and from shelf to shelf.

This scene was my favorite because I loved how the author described the Baudelaire children's’ happy expressions when they saw the library.

I also thought this scene was charming because I also would have loved to visit this wonderful house of Justice Strauss.

I would recommend this mournful but interesting book to all the 5th and 6th graders who adore reading.

Also, anyone who would love to read a good mystery book and learn a valuable lesson should read this heart pumping story about 3 unfortunate souls and their horrible guardian.