The Composer is DEAD!!!!!

Morbid book title hey?!

Actually, it's correct title is

Lemony Snicket The Composer is Dead.

Normally I would be The Last Person *said with loads of emphasis* to bring this material to my boys based on the title alone. But on this occasion I have relented because of a great experience we had in relation to this very cool book.

We first encountered The Composer is Dead as a performance when we attended The Out Of The Box Festival about midway through this year. Out of the Box is an amazingly, awesome, fun, biannual festival for children eight years and younger, produced by the Queensland Performing Arts Centre in Brisbane. When I was completing my booking form I was under strict instructions by the Fantastic Mr E, for two performances and two workshops ONLY! Wonderful, but the Pressure! The title threw me but after reading numerous reviews and pondering the value of the performance as opposed to others, I decided to chance it. I figured we could always walk out if it wasn't for our little family - no worries, we have done it before ;) Well , as the show began the word MURDER rang out so heavily and often that I wasn't sure if the journey was going to be worth it, (our boys didn't know what that word meant but in due course they figured it out from the context) but fortunately for all of us, Mr E stayed my hand and we remained for the entire excellent, entertaining and educational performance. We learned all about the orchestra in a style which portrayed the instruments as having distinct personalities as a detective investigated each instrumental group for its possible involvement in the Composers Death. We loved the show. We gained so much from the performance and realized that the educational intent used its slightly morbid vehicle to really entertain and enrich us, it's absolutely captivated audience.

Now to the book. Last week we made it to the library and there before us is this book by the same title as the performance we had viewed earlier this year. Duh! I hadn't realized that the performance was straight from a book of the same title. I grabbed it and yabbered excitedly to my boys about it, who then in turn yabbered and nagged me piteously all the way home and then continued mercilessly until the book was read. It (thankfully :D) comes with a CD with music and the narrative too.

In order to maximize the opportunity of having this book with us, I did a little Googling and found a lesson plan and video's to compliment it and have turned The Composer is Dead, into a study for this week. Not too intense, just a gentle extension on what my little men are already enjoying. The video's are below and are great to enjoy if you can't access the book, but if like me, the grim vehicle for story telling makes you balk, preview and weigh up the benefits and negatives. Hopefully someone out there likes Lemony Snicket The Composer is Dead (or possibly loves it!) almost as much as we do.

Still not sure if it's for your family and would like to read some other reviews? Visit The Children's Book Review to help you in your decision :).

Psst.... if you do watch the video, just hang on long enough to get past the little intro for the story to begin :D