A little background: when my wife and I had our first child and it seemed like all he did was nurse we read through the hobbit in about three days. I decided to get a longer series of books and ended up picking up A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. We spent the next several months reading the 13 books of the series. Well, we are going to have our second child in about two months, and I was wondering if anyone had recommendations for somewhat similar book series. A Series of Unfortunate Events was one of the best written, entertaining, engaging pieces of writing I have ever read (no joke). I probably wouldn't read it to my kids because it's not written from a Christian worldview, but it was entertaining nonetheless. Some of the common recommendations I've seen online are Artemis Fowl, Edgar and Ellen, the Spiderwick Chronicles, and the Eddie Dickson Trilogy. Several of them seem to portray a villain as a hero, which I'm not very interested in. Any recommendations that we might enjoy?