The Bad Beginning

Author: Lemony Snicket
Genre: Children's General Fiction
Series: A Series of Unfortunate Events
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pages: 162

After the recommendations from several friends, I decided to finally get around to giving this book a look. I'm glad I did. The author's sense of humor is delightful, as is the story he tells. The content is clean, and the story is straightforward without being dull. The author manages to create a creepy, scary villain without carrying it too far like so many authors who seem to forget that they're writing a book for children. And I love the way he paints the relationship of the siblings.
This is a fun story that I would feel perfectly comfortable letting my little sister read - which is high praise, coming from me - and I definitely intend to continue following the lives and events of the poor, miserable Baudelaire orphans in the rest of the series. ; )

'Midnight'

Author: Erin Hunter
Series: The New Prophesy Warriors
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Harper Collins

I had seen this book on several occasions, so I picked it up at the library over the weekend to preview for my little sister.
Midnight echoes with Redwall-esque themes - clans of animals with their own distinct societies living together in the forest, away from humans, or 'Twolegs' as they call them - only all of the characters are cats.
The many similar names of characters made them somewhat difficult to tell apart (Tawnypelt and Cinderpelt and Dustpelt and Sorrelpaw and Squirrelpaw... you get the idea) but the book still had the potential to be delightful.
Unfortunately, the author took it in the other direction. In this cat society Erin Hunter has constructed, there are separate cat clans - RiverClan, ThunderClan, etc. - and when a cat dies, they become part of 'StarClan'. StarClan in turn is the force that guides the cats in the still-living clans. The books starts off with StarClan sending a prophetic dream to the main character, calling him to some grand but vague destiny he doesn't understand. Throughout the story, the cats use phrases like 'StarClan willing' or 'thank StarClan', which is a deal-breaker for me.
I didn't even bother finishing the book. My little sister won't be reading it, either.