Article by Sue Corbett in Publishers Weekly (10/27/08)...
The Baudelaire orphans' sad story may be over but, like a post-apocalyptic cockroach, Lemony Snicket persists—to the great delight of booksellers, children, HarperCollins and Daniel Handler himself.
“I miss them,” Handler admits of Violet, Klaus and Sunny, whose adventures concluded in 2006 with The End—60 million copies from his Unfortunate Events series have sold worldwide. “Every so often I instinctively jot down notes about more bad things happening to them before I remember, 'Oh, that series is over.' It's disorienting.”
Never fear, readers. This fall Snicket returns with A Lump of Coal (HarperCollins), a companion title to last year's Hanukkah-themed picture book, The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming. In his trademark glass-almost-completely-empty fashion, Handler writes about Christmas by anthropomorphizing the traditional gift left by Santa for very bad children. He'll visit eight cities, as Snicket's representative of course, but Handler terms this tour “unplugged.”
The last few tours have been quite elaborate, traveling with musicians and orchestras, but this will be relatively muted,” he says. “I will be signing books and confronting children on an individual rather than a mass level.”
These “interim” books, as Handler calls them, keep Snicket's persona alive. He has another series idea (still under wraps) simmering, but up next is the February 2009 release of The Composer Is Dead (HarperCollins), a picture book-cum-police procedural that uses a murder investigation to explain the orchestra to children.
Read the rest of the article...
The Baudelaire orphans' sad story may be over but, like a post-apocalyptic cockroach, Lemony Snicket persists—to the great delight of booksellers, children, HarperCollins and Daniel Handler himself.
“I miss them,” Handler admits of Violet, Klaus and Sunny, whose adventures concluded in 2006 with The End—60 million copies from his Unfortunate Events series have sold worldwide. “Every so often I instinctively jot down notes about more bad things happening to them before I remember, 'Oh, that series is over.' It's disorienting.”
Never fear, readers. This fall Snicket returns with A Lump of Coal (HarperCollins), a companion title to last year's Hanukkah-themed picture book, The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming. In his trademark glass-almost-completely-empty fashion, Handler writes about Christmas by anthropomorphizing the traditional gift left by Santa for very bad children. He'll visit eight cities, as Snicket's representative of course, but Handler terms this tour “unplugged.”
The last few tours have been quite elaborate, traveling with musicians and orchestras, but this will be relatively muted,” he says. “I will be signing books and confronting children on an individual rather than a mass level.”
These “interim” books, as Handler calls them, keep Snicket's persona alive. He has another series idea (still under wraps) simmering, but up next is the February 2009 release of The Composer Is Dead (HarperCollins), a picture book-cum-police procedural that uses a murder investigation to explain the orchestra to children.
Read the rest of the article...
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