Both the Daily Mail and The Guardian appear to have suckered by a website that claims "Children's books that don't have happy endings should be banned" and that a mass "bad book" burning is planned for later this month:
http://thehappyendingsfoundation.org
If they'd bothered to check who'd registered the domain, they'd have soon spotted that the site is run by a marketing company (ArtScience) who have created a number of web sites for "A Series of Unfortunate Events". Just in case you were thinking about doing it, don't bother looking at the ArtScience web site — it's a painful example of just how bad Flash splash web sites can be!
[...] The story appears to be a hoax. Thanks to DaveyP for pointing out the fact that the thehappyendingsfoundation.org website was registered by a [...]
For what it's worth the BBC have been suckered too with Ms Small interviewed by Simon Mayo on his show followed by a phone-in debate. But if it leads to a few more people reading Snicket's meisterwerk then that's got to be good, hasn't it?