Lemony Snicket

In case you have been living under a rock for a while, Lemony Snicket is the author of the Series of Unfortunate Events books. And in case you're wondering, there are 13, which is the perfect number of books to be in the series. And they all have fun titles like The Austere Academy, The Penultimate Peril, and the one I'm reading right now, The Ersatz Elevator. Keep in mind, with words like 'ersatz' and 'penultimate' in the titles, these are children's books. He always defines words, but he defines them in relation to how they fit into the story, which is entertaining. He also writes wonderfully. And in case you doubt me (because these are children's books, and children's books have no redeeming qualities, right Jason?) I give to you the following paragraphs from The Ersatz Elevator.

If you are ever forced to take a chemistry class, you will probably see, at the front of the classroom, a large chart divided into squares, with different numbers and letters in each of them. This chart is called the table of the elements, and scientists like to say that it contains all the substances that make up our world. Like everyone else, scientists are wrong from time to time, and it is easy to see that they are wrong about the table of the elements. Because although this table contains a great many elements, from the element oxygen, which is found in the air, to the element aluminum, which is found in cans of soda, the table of the elements does not contain one of the most powerful elements that make up our world, and that is the element of surprise. The element of surprise is not a gas, like oxygen, or a solid, like aluminum. The element of surprise is an unfair advantage, and it can be found in situations in which one person has sneaked up on another. The surprised person--or, in this sad case, the surprised persons--are too stunned to defend themselves, and the sneaky person has the advantage of the element of surprise.

As the children stood in the doorway, and peered into the elevator shaft, it was as if they were standing on the edge of an enormous cliff, looking down at the dizzying depths below them. But what made these depths terrifying, as well as dizzying, was that they were so very dark. The shaft was more like a pit than a passageway, leading straight down into a blackness the likes of which the youngsters had never seen. It was darker than any night had ever been, even on the nights when there was no moon. It was darker than Dark Avenue had been on the day of their arrival. It was darker than a pitch-black panther, covered in tar, eating black licorice at the very bottom of the Black Sea.