The Orchestra--Snicket Tells All

The Composer Is Dead by Lemony Snicket is rife with puns and wordplay, as well as inside scoop about the orchestra. Snicket reveals personal traits about the instruments, all of which have the ring of truth. For example, the clarinets and oboes are sneaky and manipulative. And doesn't it sound perfectly right that the Tuba is a bachelor who stays at home and plays cards with his landlady? The accompanying CD is not just a ho-hum reading aloud of the text. The music, composed by Nathaniel Stookey, wonderfully expands the experience in the same way that quality illustrations extend the storytelling in good picture books.

Lemony Snicket, the narrator on the CD, has improved his performance since the days of his audio readings of the Series of Unfortunate Events books 3 to 5. His deadpanness (if I may coin a word) then was likely a conscious decision to complement the series' theme, but for me he was downright boring. Others seem to have agreed, because Tim Curry picked back up narrating books 6 to 13. For The Composer Is Dead, however, Snicket is sufficiently and fabulously dramatic, even operatic. He has come into his own on this reading.

Carson Ellis, the illustrator, was recognizable to me as the artist who does The Mysterious Benedict Society and, I thought, perhaps a Decemberists album cover. A little Googling reveals that she is married to Colin Meloy of the Decembrists, and drew many (or all?) of their covers. Her blog, at http://littlelittlegreenhouse.blogspot.com/ has lots of great work available to view.

A definite thumbs up for all three creators of this picture book/music/audiobook in all its formats. I would call it a Listening Experience.