Why weren't the kids forced to go to school?

[Dante]

Perhaps schooling would have been arranged once they were suitably settled into their new homes, these arrangements being interrupted by their guardians' deaths and other misfortunes. I think we may take it for granted that Dr. Montgomery was in effect homeschooling the children in his own specialised discipline, and it may be that the Squalors were lining up private (and expensive) tutors. The TMM situation wasn't legal and therefore your complaint creates no contradiction in that book. V.F.D. (that is, Village of Foul Devotees) law likewise is very clearly at odds with the outside world.

Mainly, though, it's because the author wanted a book set at boarding school and then not to have to spend time on such normalities otherwise.

[Foxy]

I think Count Olaf probably didn't care about truancy law. I don't think Uncle Monty or Aunt Josephine lived near schools, not that that is a good excuse not to go to school. And everything Sir did with the children was probably illegal.

I wonder if the parents died shortly before Christmas? Then maybe the children were on a winter break while they were with Monty and Josephine, which would explain them not going to school. And maybe by the time TAA was done, it was summer vacation.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

Sept 10, 2019 6:40:32 GMT -5 Foxy said:

I wonder if the parents died shortly before Christmas?

I think it was after Hanukkah, not after Christmas.