By Eliza Ridgeway

Popular author Daniel Handler stands in for the fictive Lemony Snicket, detained under mysterious circumstances, at a book signing at Gunn High School last week. Two friends who sat together in the first row demonstrate Handler’s dictum that anything squeezed hard enough eventually will make a noise.

The notorious, mysterious Lemony Snicket of children’s-book fame failed to make an appearance at a talk and book signing last week, but he sent his alter ego, Daniel Handler, as replacement. Never has an author’s alias been so integral to his plot than in Snicket’s 12 books, “A Series of Unfortunate Events.”

As his arcing narrative develops throughout 13 volumes, the story behind the mysterious (and fictive) author becomes entwined with the plot itself. This was evident at the book event last week celebrating the release of the 12th book, “The Penultimate Peril.” Snicket’s books reach readers from early elementary school to adulthood.

High-pitched shrieks of excitement greeted the author’s introduction, given by Dennis Ronberg of Linden Tree Children’s Recordings & Books, which sponsored the event. The stage remained empty, but from the back of the auditorium at Gunn High School the silhouette of a man in a dark suit became visible.

“I don’t know why anyone would lie to children. Although it is fun,” Handler said in a laconic, Cheshire-cat voice as he glared down at a small child. She stared back hypnotized. A boy started giggling softly.

Audience participation defined the evening, as Handler elicited dramatic enactments and definitions of tricky words from the children. He challenged them to guess why Snicket couldn’t be there that night.

When one girl guessed, “Ran into trees?” Handler said, “No. I can see the school systems around these parts are as bad as I’ve been told,” a pronouncement that cracked up third-grade teacher John Brubaker of Escondido Elementary School.

Brubaker read the first book in Snicket’s series to his class. He said, “I immediately had five students who went to check it out at the library.” He thinks that fun books like the series have a place in the classroom, as well as classics. In an agreement between Linden Tree and the Palo Alto Unified School District, the event raised almost $3,000 for school libraries.

A wave of children’s heads followed Handler as he ran wildly about the room brandishing a particularly menacing (dead) beetle that had allegedly incapacitated Snicket earlier that day. “It is dreadful! Sitting in the back will not keep you safe!” he howled. His unabashed and straight-faced humor seemed to delight adults as much as it did the youth in the sold-out crowd of 950.

“Of course these books have a message for young people,” he said. ‘If you see Count Olaf, scream and run away!” Handler brought Olaf, the snarling, simpering villain of the series, to life in an imitation that blew Jim Carrey’s cinematic version out of the water.

Handler had the children roaring with laughter when he cracked jokes that would have seemed, to the untrained adult, far above their heads. “A lesser mind would think treachery is afoot,” he breathed as a he drew an accordion onto the stage. “The accordion has been around hundreds of years and hated by thousands of people,” he said, and launched into a heart-rending song of Count Olaf’s villainy.

After the stage show, Handler lingered for hours to sign every book young and old brought before him. Dennis and Linda Ronberg, prepared for his dedication, had arranged entertainment such as the storyteller Tom Farly to soften the long wait in line for dedicated fans.

For more information, visit www.lemonysnicket.com.