FLLS Home Page
Serving public libraries in Cayuga, Cortland, Seneca, Tioga and Tompkins Counties
Visit our member libraries

119 E. Green St.
Ithaca, NY  14850
(607) 273-4074 or
(800) 909-3557
(607) 273-3618 (FAX)
Hours: Mon.-Fri.
8:00AM-4:30PM

If You Like Lemony Snicket

The Novelist Database or a web search  on "lemony snicket read-alikes" will help you find many Lemony Snicket-esque tales. For a quick pick here are 10 weird & wacky orphan tales for you to avoid.

 

  • The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, by Joan Aiken.
    • Wicked wolves and a grim governess threaten Bonnie and her cousin Sylvia when Bonnie's parents leave Willoughby Chase for a sea voyage. Left in the care of the cruel Miss Slighcarp, the girls can hardly believe what is happening to their once happy home. The servants are dismissed, the furniture is sold, and Bonnie and Sylvia are sent to a prison-like orphan school. It seems as if the endless hours of drudgery will never cease. With the help of Simon the gooseboy and his flock, they escape. But how will they ever get Willoughby Chase free from the clutches of the evil Miss Slighcarp?


  • A House Called Awful End, by Phillip Ardagh.
    • When eleven-year-old Eddie Dickens's ill parents become "a bit crinkly round the edges," he is taken by his great-uncle and great-aunt, Mad Uncle Jack and Mad Aunt Maude, and embarks on adventures that involve strolling actors, St. Horrid's Home for Grateful Orphans, and a carnival float shaped like a giant cow


  • Spiderwick Chronicles: The Field Guide, by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi.
    • When the Grace children go to stay at their Great Aunt Lucinda's worn Victorian house, they discover a field guide to fairies and other creatures and begin to have some unusual experiences.


  • Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism, by Georgia Byng.
    • Unlucky and unloved, Molly Moon, living in a dreary orphanage in a small English town, discovers a hidden talent for hypnotism and hypnotizes her way to stardom in New York City.

     

  • Ruby Holler, by Sharon Creech.
    • Thirteen-year-old fraternal twins Dallas and Florida have grown up in a terrible orphanage but their lives change forever when an eccentric but sweet older couple invites them each on an adventure, beginning in an almost magical place called Ruby Holler.


  • James & the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl.
    •  A young boy escapes from two wicked aunts and embarks on a series of adventures with six giant insects he meets inside a giant peach.


  • Half-A-Moon Inn, by Paul Fleischman.
    • A mute boy is held captive by the strange proprietress of an inn.


  • Coraline, by Neil Gaiman.
    • Looking for excitement, Coraline ventures through a mysterious door into a world that is similar, yet disturbingly different from her own, where she must challenge a gruesome entity in order to save herself, her parents, and the souls of three others.

     

  • Olivia Kidney, by Ellen Potter.
    • Twelve-year-old Olivia explores her new apartment building and finds a psychic, talking lizards, a shrunken ex-pirate, an exiled princess, ghosts, and other unusual characters.


  • Spring-Heeled Jack, Phillip Pullman.
    • Three children make their escape from a London orphanage and after a series of misadventures are reunited with their father through the efforts of the legendary Spring-Heeled Jack.

Looking for Lemony Snicket on the Web? Visit the official book site or movie site.

 


Home | About Us | Services | Library Resources | Advocacy
Search the Catalog | Electronic Databases | Member Libraries | Links

Please contact for questions or problems.