A couple of weeks ago, after reading a couple of chapters of the first Lemony Snicket book, called A Bad Beginning, I declared it a much-better-than-expected piece of kid lit. Well, I’ve finished the book and should revise the assessment. My son bailed out about halfway through. He really didn’t like it. I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe it was some of the book’s darker moments — dead parents, child protagonists thrown into desperate circumstances, a narrator who keeps reminding us that there’s nothing happy in the story. None of that especially bothered me. But as the book dragged on (I dediced to finish reading it on my own), it seemed less inventive. I actually enjoyed the narrative style quite a bit, but the story wound up only so-so. Maybe the movie is better. For bedtime in our home, we’ve gone back to a proven classic, Alice in Wonderland, and we’re having better results.