I assign Lemony Snicket for this
book. I don't like holidays. Anybody who knows me knows that. But I just bought two copies of it because it made me happy enough to keep one for myself and mail one off in the morning to an unsuspecting friend. Yep. Hecks yes for witty and erudite (by this I mean "learned or scholarly") children's literature which doesn't shy away from words and ideas of a gargantuan (and by this I mean "very large") nature.