Separated in the snowy Mortmain Mountains, the Baudelaire orphans climb toward a secret headquarters while Count Olaf holds baby Sunny
Up the frozen mountain
The Baudelaire orphans have survived a great deal since the fire that took their parents, but never before have they been split apart. Violet and Klaus are hurtling down a mountainside in a runaway caravan, while their baby sister Sunny is a prisoner of the villainous Count Olaf and his troupe, who are camped at the top of the same freezing peaks. To save her, the older two must climb.
Who will enjoy it
Readers aged about nine to thirteen who have followed the Baudelaires this far and enjoy dark humour, wordplay and puzzles.
What you will get
A darkly funny adventure in which two orphans climb a frozen mountain to rescue their baby sister from Count Olaf, uncovering more of a long-hidden secret.
The Slippery Slope Facts: Pages, Genre and Setting
Genre
Children’s Books · Orphans · Mountains · Secret society
Length
337 pages · ≈ 10 h
More about this book
By the tenth volume, the series has changed in an interesting way. It is still a gloomy comedy narrated by the mournful Lemony Snicket, but it is now also a mystery about a secret organization known only by its initials, and The Slippery Slope delivers some of its most important answers. Violet and Klaus head for the organization's mountain headquarters, hoping to find allies, and discover something unexpected along the way: a long-lost friend.
Sunny, meanwhile, gets her best storyline yet. Forced to cook and clean for Olaf's gang, she proves resourceful, brave and very funny, communicating in her usual baby-talk that only her siblings understand. There are scouts in snowsuits, a swarm of stinging insects, an ice-cold climb up a frozen waterfall and some typically ridiculous villains. Violet's inventions and Klaus's research save the day, and the siblings are forced to ask whether they are as noble as they want to be.
It is darker and more thoughtful than the early books, but still full of jokes and odd definitions. Read the series in order; The Grim Grotto follows. About 337 pages in the HarperCollins hardcover.
The Carnivorous Carnival
The Hostile Hospital
The Bad Beginning
The Penultimate Peril
Howl's Moving Castle
The Grim Grotto
The Vile Village
The Ersatz Elevator
The Austere Academy
The Wide Window
The Miserable Mill
The False Prince