Marcus Sedgwick's The Book Of Dead Times

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Marcus Sedgwick was born April 8, 1968. He was born and grew up in East Kent, England an extremely shy and timid boy. This did not help him when he went to Sir Roger Manwood's School. This was an all boy high school where Sedgwick was bullied and tormented. He described the physiological torture the worst because the school almost welcomed the actions of bullying by calling it character building. After he graduated he moved back home and jumped into his writing career. His first published piece was when he was 16 and his first book was published in 2000. Since then he has won many awards including the Michael L. Printz award which is one of the highest awards for young adult literature. Sedgwick pulled lots of his emotions and interest into …show more content…

He plays drums and would play professionally if he was not a writer (marcussedgwick.me). Sedgwick says in an interview with Julie Bartel that he lets the emotion of the music influence how he writes. He says that his book The Book of Dead Days was inspired by Franz Schubert's song cycle, Winterreise. He describes Winterreise as the bleakest and most beautiful music ever write (meacussedgwick.me). When reading The Book of Dead Days you can hear the song in the words. The tempo, climaxes, and even rhythm can be seen in the book. Towards the end, Valerian can almost obtain the book he had been looking for 10 years. He reads the passage he has been searching for and knows what he has to do (Sedgwick, Marcus. The Book of Dead Days). At this moment in the sound of Winterreise controls the words with its flow. The piano would be playing faster and faster and the tone would be getting louder. It would then stop on a high note leaving the listener in suspense. This is just like Sedgwick's writing. It allows him to bring emotion into his books which makes them connect to the reader. With all the emotion that Sedgwick carries throughout his books, he also has a way of dealing with difficult topics in order to make the reader think about tough

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