One Dark and Dreadful Night by Randy Cecil

This book is so interesting. The narrator, Maestro Von Haughty, is putting on three plays and the reader is the audience. He tries to recreate famous fairy tales but his actors keep messing up. He gets frustrated and stops the plays, which ends the books. This book is really funny because while the Maestro is narrating the play, the actors have a lot of side-talk. For example, the Maestro is telling the story of Little Red Riding Hood and he talks about her red coat. The actress playing Little Red Riding Hood says "Do you think we can talk wardrobe into doing something about this outfit?" This side-talk continues throughout the story and it makes the book funny because it frustrates the Maestro. In the play, Jack and the Beanstalk, instead of the giant coming down, a giant bunny comes down and this makes the Maestro mad because this isn't how he had envisioned his play.

The illustrations in this book are good but I wouldn't say that they are the best. They go along well with the text but it is really the storyline that makes this such a good and funny book. This would be a great book to show students the different styles and purposes of writing. This would be a great book to use in mini-lessons. You could also have students write their own play after reading this book. I would recommend this book for all ages.