The Ersatz Elevator by Daniel Handler
It's hard not to love a children's book which uses "ersatz" in the title and then proceeds to very clearly define exactly what it means. Not that it is coldly defined in Webster-ese. Rather it is defined Lemony Snicket style, with humor and repeated plot illustrations making Book the Sixth in A Series of Unfortunate Events an incredibly fun vocabulary lesson.
The Baudelaire orphans — Violet, Klaus, and Sunny — have left the Austere Academy and been delivered to a new set of guardians. When we meet Jerome Squalor, we are tempted to be slightly optimistic that these guardians just might be useful. Then we meet his wife, Esme.
Esme, a woman slated to play an important role in the rest of the series, turns out to be as despicable as Count Olaf, though it takes a while to see her at her worse. She is a wealthy woman (the sixth most important financial advisor in the city) who cares only about what is "in" and what is "out." If it's "in," she'll do it, wear it, drink it, eat it. If it's "out," she'll have nothing to do with it. She's such a slave to the whims of fashion that it dictates everything she does and how she does it.
The orphans are very worried about their new friends, the Quagmire triplets. This novel launches a search that will end up taking much longer and being far more dangerous than the orphans expected. It is also an installment in which the orphans start to learn more about VFD — indeed, they're finding the acronym to be far more ubiquitous than one might expect if one were not trapped inside a Lemony Snicket novel.
Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) continues his love affair with the pun and quirky characters. He once more disguises Count Olaf and throws several creepy surprises at the orphans.
It is, as the five books that came before it, an enjoyable story. While The Miserable Mill and The Austere Academy were somewhat disappointing, The Ersatz Elevator shows Handler to be back in full form and is highly entertaining.
