the very sad 12 year old.

I was 12 when I first read Lemony Snicket's „A Series of Unfortunate Events”. Sometimes I wonder if I haven’t reached for it too soon.

I have the impression that many of the books on the shelves of children's literature don’t really belong there. And beneath these joyful stories with happy endings, there are heavy truths falling upon us. Ones that may go unnoticed for children’s eyes.

Interestingly, "A Series of Unfortunate Events" is not a happy story. There is no happy ending nor happy beginning. The sorrow I felt, when reading it 10 years ago, is even deeper today.

The moral that screams out of the pages of this novel is „listen to children!”. To not disregard what they say, stop assuming that they have a vivid imagination or they don't understand what's going on. Children see much more than adults.

I remember well the moment I put down the last book of the series on the shelf and it felt as if I was putting aside my whole world view with it.

At the age of 12, I got overwhelmed by the feeling that being a good and noble person is not enough. I was scared of living in a cruel world, forever divided by a schism, that even my parents couldn’t protect me from. I was thinking that good does not have to necessarily prevail, and that my right may be wrong to others. I felt as if life was about fooling everyone, before they fool you. I was staring at the world map, thinking that the oceans and seas might be in fact the library of all the tears in history.

I immersed myself into the world of Dante, Milton, Baudelaire and I was becoming more and more sad.

As I’ve aged, I started to notice the real message behind this series. When I read it again in college, I could feel the growing anger at the injustice that the main heroes of the book must have faced.

I decided that I don’t want to live in a world where evil lurks around from every corner, where everyone lives in constant anxiety and looks with suspicion at people around. I cannot lose myself in this hopelessness, but I should start fighting to make my life different. To become a person, who seeing an injustice, will stand up and say out loud "I disagree". And even if the crowd tries to knock me down and heckle me, I will stand still and take their shots at me.

I don't want to. I can't. I won't live passively in a world of unfortunate events.