The Baudelaire children have now been sent off to meet their new guardians after being disbanded from their last school that they attended.  Since the Baudelaire children have been disbanded from their last school, the kidnapping of their friends by Count Olaf still haunts them. This is shown on page 8 “Just when the Quagmires had learned some terrible secret about Olaf, he had snatched them away, and since then the Baudelaires had been so worried that they scarcely slept a wink.”Now the Baudelaires are worried that Count Olaf would find them with their new guardians, Mr. Squalor and Mrs. Squalor.  The Squalors were very rich, they lived at the top of a very tall penthouse, and the Squalors get much money from auctions.  This is shown on page 28 “I’m Esme Gigi Geniveve Squalor, the city’s sixth most important financial advisor,’ she announced grandly. ‘Even though I am unbelievably wealthy, you may call me Esme.”  This shows that the Squalors are very wealthy.  During their stay at the Squalors the Baudelaires find that Count Olaf has shown up in disguise again, as the Squalors auctioneer.  When the Baudelaires find that Count Olaf is in disguise, the children think that the Quagmires must be nearby.  This is shown on page 61 and 63 “As Olaf looked down at them with a nasty smile, enjoying the element of surprise, the children saw that he was in yet another of his nefarious disguises… ‘Where have you put the Quagmire triplets?”  This shows the children are concerned where their friends are when Olaf showed up.  The children soon learn that Esme is against the Baudelaires, later Esme and Olaf team up to stop the Baudelaires from finding the truth about the Quagmires.
The theme of The Ersatz Elevator is that you should never give up even when you are facing hard times.  The theme of the story is shown on several pages.  On page 17 “Even though a long, upward climb awaited them, as the Baudelaires started walking into the darkness.”  This shows even though the Baudelaire children had many flights to walk they still tried to walk anyways.  A style that the author did not use high diction this is shown on page 96 “Parsley soda is in now. You’ll have to buy a few crates of it.”  This shows even though a wealthy character is speaking the character did not use high diction, I think the author wrote this way so the readers could understand what characters are saying.  The author also uses medium length sentences throughout the book.  An example is shown on page 17 “They were anxious to find the Quagmire triplets, whom they might never see again.”  Another use of this is shown on page 21 “Violet smiled, although her siblings couldn’t see it in the darkness.”
My opinion of The Ersatz Elevator is that the story is very dull.  I did not like this book because the story was very boring, until the Baudelaires find their friends, the Quagmires.  Every other page in the story leading to the discovery of where their lost friends were was a bore. For example on pages116,117 instead of the children looking for the Quagmires they are stuck in a lobby doing nothing, and not thinking of how to find them “The doorman continued to insist that the Baudelaire orphans could not return to the penthouse, so the three children sat on the bottom step of 667 Dark Avenue’s lengthy stairwell.”  I think instead of the author trying to make the Baudelaires caring they make them seem like they are simple minded.