Very creepy and not creepy enough at the same time, which may mean this book has struck a balance between the factual story of composer Camille Saint-Saëns and the fantastically ghoulish story his music tells. If you were going to visit the Paris catacombs, I'd definitely recommend giving this a read and a listen (the books comes with a CD recording of the Danse Macabre).

One part that struck me as interesting was the use of metaphor when describing the first performance of the piece. The text and the pictures both make it seems like something magical happened during the performance. "One by one the skeletons rose from their graves. Bone against bone, they rattled and danced." The illustrations only show the orchestra as a background image. In the foreground, we see a skeleton holding a fiddle. This part of the book describes the story the music tells, but an inexperienced reader could think the book just veered into fiction. I think this creates a good teachable moment about the use of metaphor in non-fiction. Common Core, baby!

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