Kevin O'Malley

This book was so much fun! It's simultaneously breezy and gross, and I think it will be embraced with glee by young teens. There's plenty of fabulously arcane information mixed in with the obligatory exploding corpses, blistering plasters, lead poisoning and leeches. Covers lots of famous deaders, from Cleopatra to Marie Curie, from Caesar to President Garfield. Recommended!

This is a rousing book for young readers. Bragg stokes an interest in the lives of famous historical figures, by making their deaths exemplary and gruesome. While she is on the topic of their eventual demise, she manages to throw in a few biographical details for each figure. Each biography is presented in chronological order, from King Tut to Einstein. One may wonder what links we could find between the likes of Cleopatra and Marie Curie. Bragg considers most of her selections connected in show more some way, even if the link is extremely tangential (Napoleon found the Rosetta Stone which helped decipher the hieroglyphics in King Tut's tomb).

There are two features which stand out in the presentation of this book. The first is the author's use of black humor and informal dialect to reach her young audience. The other is the presentation of absurd medical techniques. The ineffective medical techniques and theories of the pre-19th Century are quite humorous when we look back at them in the light of all the medical accommodations expected today. Bragg goes over many ancient techniques like leeches, cupping, blister-beetles, sweating, water-cure, blood-letting, and mummy medicine.

My only criticism of this book is its insensitivity. Some children, not to mention some people, do not share our sense of humor (by "our" I mean those of us with a taste for black humor). How can we tell them to lighten up about death? This book should be considered optional reading for certain middle-school aged children who are taken in by this kind of tone and humor. If this book were only about death, it would have little redeeming value; it also concerns itself with the superstitions of illness, and how these exacerbated the downfall of people who led to appreciable progress in science and perception (with the exception, maybe, of James Madison and Marie Antoinette). The author also gives an appendix with useful information about the lives of these famous people, in case the student is curious about some of the biographical facts mentioned in the book. A humorous steppingstone, but not a substitute for biographical research. show less

STYLE

HOW THEY CROAKED is the best book I've read all year. This electrifying text seamlessly and creatively weaves together history, art, science, and culture into a cohesive and highly readable text. Written in "kid-friendly" language, this book is nevertheless going to draw in readers of all ages, who will enjoy and be fascinated by these spine-tingling true tales. While the focus of the text is on the scientific corporeal death of history's most famous figures, I really appreciated how show more Bragg and O'Malley include interesting background information--and just the right amount. Rather than being a serious of laborious biographies through which to slog, each historical person is briefly but brightly illuminated with famous quotes, events, and facts alongside beautiful and humorous illustrations.

This text is great to use with students for a variety of reasons and in a variety of ways. A science teacher may wish to focus on the scientific elements presented, such as the various diseases/procedures/medicines, etc. A history/social studies teacher may attune to the timeline nature of the text, or the various maps/charts, etc. which detail historical and cultural facts and phenomena. For me, in the Language Arts classroom, I might use this text as a primer, have my students choose a famous person NOT in the book, research that person (their life, times, and death), and then write their own chapter of this book. show less

This is an adorable tale within a tale of two competing narrators, a boy and a girl, who use their imagination to take turns storytelling as they relay the adventures of a princess whose precious ponies have been stolen by a giant who wants to make them into a stew. The male narrator clashes with the female character's vision for the story as he introduces the hero: Cool Motorcycle Dude who at first seems out of place in the story and conflicts with the whole vibe. The book is full of humor show more relating to gender differences in children as the two collaborate and compromise their two perspectives until they end up with a coherent story they are both happy with in the end. The story is cleverly written with three different illustrators to convey the story within the story and the two different minds coming together. show less