Why Must Read The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events #1)?

I just finished off the Netflix series with my 20 year old daughter, and I thought I would see how the book compared to the series. I wish I had discovered this book ten years ago so that I could have given it to my daughters when it was more age appropriate. The story zips along quickly enough to keep the reader entertained. It is also very humorous in its presentation of characters and situations. The writing is amusing and well-done. However, I think the best thing about the book might be the way that it introduces the young reader to a larger vocabulary through the narrator's quirk of telling us what a word "here means." As an adult, I have to say that while this book is really very short - it took me no more than an hour or two to polish it off - it has the trait of a lot of good children's entertainment that the writer pitches jokes on several levels so that on one level an adult might catch the humor of a sentence that would sail over the heads of a child.