The Hostile Hospital by Lemony Snicket
Illustrated by Brett Helquist
A Series Of Unfortunate Events, No. 8
Harper Collins 2001
ISBN: 0064408663 - Hardcover
Children/Fiction
Ages 9-12 (of interest to 7-14)

Reviewed by Beverly J. Rowe, MyShelf.com
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Things begin very badly for the three Baudelaire orphans and quickly get much worse. David Handler, who writes this series as Lemony Snicket, describes this book as "one of the most dreadful books in the world."

Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire, the resourceful children who were orphaned in an earlier book of the series, are dismayed to find their pictures splashed all over the front page of the Daily Punctilio along with an article accusing them of murdering the evil Count Olaf...who is not dead at all.

To avoid capture, they join the Volunteers Fighting Disease and end up at the Heimlich Hospital. The volunteers hand out heart-shaped balloons and sing to patients, but the three orphans manage to get assigned to work in the hospital's Library of Records, hoping to solve the mysteries that confront them. They are not there long before Count Olaf discovers their location.

Disguised as Mattathias, the new head of Human Resources, Count Olaf decides to perform a "cranioectomy" on Violet and to make Klaus and Sunny assist in the operation. How can they ever get out of this? Where is their guardian, Mr. Poe? How can they awaken the unconscious Violet?

The author has a rare wit and a genius for storytelling. He is able to keep the tension at a high level with improbable twists and turns in the plot, while providing lots of laughs. His ongoing word definitions are added spice.

A Lemony Snicket book is like a potato chip. Kids will not want to stop with just one, but will likely want to collect the whole series.