Editorial Review
WARNING: LISTENING TO THIS TAPE WILL ONLY MAKE YOU WEEP...
Dear Listener,
If you are looking for a story about cheerful youngsters spending a jolly time at boarding school, look elsewhere. Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire are intelligent and resourceful children, and you might expect that they would do very well at school.
Don't.
For the Baudelaires, school turns out to be another miserable episode in their unlucky lives. Truth be told, within the chapters that make up this dreadful story, the children will face snapping crabs, strict punishments, dripping fungus, comprehensive exams, violin recitals. S.O.R.E., and the metric system.
It is my solemn duty to stay up all night reading my history of these three hapless youngsters into a microphone, but you may be more comfortable getting a good night's sleep. In that case, you should probably listen to something else.
With all due respect,
LEMONY SNICKET
Cached date: AWS Called=true
Customer Reviews
Austere Academy Review - - AML_48 
2007-05-17
The Austere Academy by Lemony Snicket was one of the best books besides The End. Olaf is so devious. The fact that there are other children whose parents died in a fire does not suprise me. The Baudelaire's handle this ordeal well as they have all the others. I would recommend this book to most of my peers.
Unfortunately, I've only read this once! 
2007-05-11
In this book in the Series of Unfortunate Events, the Baudelaire Orphans retire from thier last fiasco, ending up in a strange school called Prufrock Prep. It is the most vile, the most disgustingly morbid place the Baudelaires had ever been! (save for Count Olaf's house, of course....). The buildings are gray and resemble tombstones, and the Vice Principal, Nero, plays his violin atrociously at nightly sonatas. The school's motto is engraved upon a stone archway overlooking the enterance; "Memento Mori". In Latin, "Remember You Will Die". They are sent by senseless Nero to (he has pigtails, by the way...) to live in the "Orphans Shack" because there's no one to sign papers for them to enter the dorm rooms. It has dripping fungus, terretiorial crabs, and pink walls with green hearts or the other way around. Anyway, they meat this really nasty girl named Carmelita Spats who calls them "cakesniffers", and then they meet the Quagmire triplets whose brother died in a fire, (names are Duncan and Isadora), and they help the Baudelairs out. But then Count Olaf, the one nastiest person in Lemony Snicket's fictional world that he has taken the time to in-depthly describe, disguises himself as "Coach Genghis", therefore breaching the school's secutity system by eluding thier "advanced' computer". He makes the Baudelaires paint a luminous circle of glowing paint on the front lawn of the school, and then run laps around the glowing track until morning for several nights, in a little operation he called "S.O.R.E.". (Simple Orphan Running Excersizes, I think.) Then for a week or two he does this, and up until thier final exams they started flunking out of lack of sleep, and being very irritable indeed. So on the day of the tests, Duncan and Isadora instead cover for Violet, Klaus, and Sunny by dressing like them and dragging a "sunny decoy" behind them - a bag of flour wearing her bonnet and little pink ribbon. This is so the Baudelaires could stay behind and study. But they get caught, and even though the Baudelaires aced thier tests, they were expelled by Vice principan Nero. Then Olaf walks up, is exposed for who he really is, in short, and then dashes back to his car and revves the engine. As he starts off, the siblings see the Quagmire triplets in the back window. Duncan shouths to Klaus, "V.F.D.", and "in my notebooks!", before Olaf snatches the notebooks from Klaus and drives away. But that is for the next book. I liked this book and gave it a five out of five. I think any of you who are on this page for any reason other than that you have simply lost your way among the web would, also. Lemony Snicket, if you ever come to reading this page, THAT BOOK WAS AWESOME!!!!!!! (ahem...sorry. What I meant to say is, happy reading!) ;)
The Austere Academy 
2007-05-07
The Austere Academy is about three Buadelaire children who lost their parents in a fire. Ever since, they had gone through one horrible event after another. In this book they are sent to a boarding school that is led by a violinist. He makes the kids in school listen to his horrible music and then treats the Buadelaires badly. Count Olaf, a fiend who wants to steal the Buadelaire's fortune, is employed there and makes trouble. He forced the Buadelaires to run laps all night and when their friends tried to help they were kidnaped. They are then forced to leave and find their friends. I liked this book because it had interesting characters, the weirdest stories, and an interesting storyline.
This book had many interesting characters. One would be the vice principle, who forced all of the children to listen to horrible violin music. Every day his concerts lasted four hours. Another includes Carmelita Spats. She was the mean, ugly, and rude, and had a click of girls who made fun of everyone. She made mean rumors and did evil things to the Buadelaires throughout the entire book. Lastly was Coach Genghis or Count Olaf. He made the children run hundreds of laps for nine nights strait.
The story had many weird stories inside of it. For example, Carmelita Spats calls the dorm that the orphans live in the Orphan Shack. The name sticks and when they enter, it is full of blue crabs and green fungus on the ceiling. In order to solve this problem, they put metal plates on their shoes to scare the crabs away and spread salt on the fungus to make it go away.
The last reason I liked this book is because of its interesting storyline. The affairs with Carmelita Spats, running laps, Coach Genghis, the vice principle, and violin recitals made this book a good one. All of this contributed to making it a good book.
I liked this because of its interesting storyline, interesting characters, and weird stories.
good 2007-03-10
this book is about 3 kids at a strange school with odd punishments. the gym teacher is evil and is trying to steal their fortune. The kids make 2 friends who help. the kids are very unlucky. Nothing goes right and things just get worse.
Elliott 2007-02-22
Imagine your if your parents die when you are very young and you have been going from family member to family member until your whole family is dead except for your evil great uncle who killed your whole family. He tries to steal your family fortune and kills everyone until the fortune is guaranteed to be his once you die. Every time he tries to kill you though, he is stopped by someone and has to escape swearing to find the three Baudelaire children. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny were enrolled into a boarding school with an atrocious vice principal that has the most ludicrous rules and force all the children to stay up six hours after eight P.M. and listen to his ungodly violin playing. Worse of all the Baudelaires had to live through S.O.R.E. which was a running program made up by Coach Genghis which made the Baudelaires run from sunset to dawn. Coach Genghis ends up being Count Olaf and takes the Quagmire triplets when he escapes. This book is a mysterious book and is worth reading.
The Austere Academy's characters were realistic. They ended up doing things a normal person would do. Like when the Quagmire triplets studied Count Olaf's history. Also, the characters were realistic when the Baudelaires stayed up all night studying for exams that would determine if they would be expelled or not.
The Austere Academy's story was life like. The story didn't have a happy ending like suspected. Instead the author makes the book end at the end of a horrible event so you buy the next book. The book ended with Count Olaf getting away and taking the Quagmire twins with him.
The Austere Academy's suspense forced me to keep reading. Whenever the narrator compared herself to the story something bad was about to happen. This is what caused me to keep reading. When the narrator made sure you knew something bad was going to happen before it happened to make sure you kept reading.
The Austere Academy is an excellent novel because the author compares their real life experiences to the novel. This adds extra detail and suspense. The author used this technique when they were talking about Coach Genghis's disguise. The author compared it to the time when they went to a Halloween party and dressed up as another person to fool other people. The Austere Academy is a great novel that creates suspense.
Very Strict Indeed 2008-04-26
This is the 5th book in Lemony Snicket's "Series of Unfortunate Events". In this book, the Baudelaires are put in a boarding school where they are made to live in a shack dripping with goo and crawling with small crabs. If one forgets to make an appointment to see the head of the academy,vice-principal Nero, they are not allowed silverware at mealtimes. Violet's teacher tells stories that are only a few sentences long and boring or non-sensical, and the students are supposed to remember each one. Klaus's teacher has her class measure everything, and to remember each measurement. Sunny, the baby, is made to be Nero's secretary. Every evening, Nero - a terrible violin player - makes all students sit through a six-hour concert of his. The gym teacher is even more hard on the Baudelaires. Every evening, he makes them run laps all night long. One very good thing happens to the children, at last. They make two friends, who are good friends at that. They risk their lives for the Baudelaires and, though Count Olaf did manage to find the children at the academy, at least the Baudelaires escape him. In all probability, we will see their new friends again - that is, if they are still alive.
audio books 2008-02-23
These audio books help children that are having trouble with the written word. I also use them in the car, so each trip we hear more of the story. The kids love them and I think it makes them interested in reading.
A Series of Unfortunate Events Book 2008-01-14
This book is wonderful. I bought it for my daughter in hopes she would read over the Christmas holiday. She did and loved it! It was ordered, shipped and received within 5 days. I would recommend Amazon to anyone. As far as this book, the whole series is wonderful.
worst title ever 2007-12-17
The Austere Academy
By John Mendoza
"The Austere Academy". Another one Lemony Sniket's dreadful tales of the Baudeiaire orphans. This book is the fifth series and fifth time Count Olaf has come into their lives. The Baudeliares parents perished in a terrible fire that destroyed the entire mansion and everything they had except each other. Since then a man named Count Olaf has been trying to get his filthy hands on the Baudelaires. His plans are usually along the lines of fooling people into thinking he's actually someone else by disguising himself, and then somehow whisk the children away. That might be his plan in this book, but that's not how it works out exactly. You'll have to read the book to find out how it ends up.
My favorite part of "The Austere Academy" was when the three Baudelaires were chasing Count Olaf across the field of the boarding school they attended. Little did they know they were actually helping him with his plan when they painted the illuminous circle. Anyway, they were chasing him across the field, and to their surprise, they were actually catching up to him. Each time the children would reach him, they took off a piece of his disguise, and by the time he got up to his getaway vehicle, he was completely exposed to the villain he actually was.
I highly recommend this book to any kid from fourth grade and up. It was a really easy and quick read and even if you don't like reading, I can tell you, you'd probably find it hard to put the book down. If you need to catch up on a green dot or a book report, this would be a great book to do so on. This series of books are really funny and at the same time really dreadful, and that's what makes these books really great.
Harry Potter 2007-06-06
This book is about three orphans who have a large fortune left by there parents. The orphans go to Austere Academy in hope that Count Olaf, an evil man, doesn't come to the academy and steal there fortune. While they are there they meet two orphans who become their friends, but friends don't know something terrible is going to happen to them.
This book is full of mystery and excitement and if you like books with that I suggest you read it. You will never want to put the book down. This book would be great for 3rd through 6th graders.
Does Count Olaf get the kids? Will he take the fortune? What will happen to the friends? Will the orphans be safe? Find out in the A Series of Unfortunate Events the Austere Academy.
