The Composer is Dead

Name: The Composer is Dead
Brand: HarperCollins Publishers
Price: 40.75 AUD
Availability: BackOrder

By: Lemony Snicket, Carson Ellis (Illustrator)

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Hardcover | 1 May 2009

At a Glance

Hardcover
40 Pages

Age
4 - 8

Grade
3 - 4

Dimensions(cm)
28.6 x 22.5 x 0.8

Hardcover

$40.75

or 4 interest-free payments of $10.19 with

Available for Backorder. We will order this from our supplier however there isn't a current ETA.

This Snicket collaboration between Daniel Handler and his long time friend, composer Nat Stookey, has toured as a live perfomance by orchestras in cities around the world. At last, this ground-breaking work is available as a beautifully illustrated picture book with art by Carson Ellis and a free CD featuring a recording of San Francisco Symphony with narration by Lemony Snicket.

There's dreadful news from the symphony hall—the composer is dead!

If you have ever heard an orchestra play, then you know that musicians are most certainly guilty of something. Where exactly were the violins on the night in question? Did anyone see the harp? Is the trumpet protesting a bit too boisterously?

In this perplexing murder mystery, everyone seems to have a motive, everyone has an alibi, and nearly everyone is a musical instrument. But the composer is still dead.

Perhaps you can solve the crime yourself. Join the Inspector as he interrogates all the unusual suspects. Then listen to the accompanying audio recording featuring Lemony Snicket and the music of Nathaniel Stookey performed by the San Francisco Symphony. Hear for yourself exactly what took place on that fateful, well-orchestrated evening.

About The Author

Lemony Snicket is often despondent, mostly about his published research, which includes A Series of Unfortunate Events and The Composer Is Dead.

About The Illustrator

Colin Meloy once wrote Ray Bradbury a letter, informing him that he “considered himself an author too.” He was ten. Since then, Colin has gone on to be the singer and songwriter for the band the Decemberists, where he channels all of his weird ideas into weird songs. This is his first time channeling those ideas into a novel.

As a kid, Carson Ellis loved exploring the woods, drawing, and nursing wounded animals back to health. As an adult, little has changed—except she is now the acclaimed illustrator of several books for children, including Lemony Snicket’s The Composer is Dead, Dillweed’s Revenge by Florence Parry Heide, and The Mysterious Benedict...

Industry Reviews

In this characteristically unsettling invitation to Meet the Orchestra, the Composer leads off - dead or, as the author puts it, "decomposing" at his desk. Enter the Inspector - bearing a certain resemblance to the aforementioned scrivener (or at least his alter ego) in Ellis's note-strewn, atmospherically wan watercolors - to grill each section of instruments and to pick apart their alibis. When the Inspector at last accuses the Conductor of doing the dirty deed, all of the former suspects step up to declare collective guilt: "All of us have butchered a composer at one time or another. But we also keep composers alive." On the accompanying CD the melodramatic narrative is set to percussive music, which is reprised without the author's reading on a second set of tracks. Conceived as an alternative to "Peter and the Wolf" but more a send-up than an informational visit to the pit, the episode isn't likely to make much of a lasting impression on young audiences. (Picture book. 8-10, adult) (Kirkus Reviews)

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