Guts, Gore, and Death: The End

Today's book review discusses the "awful ends of the awfully famous."  Walking through the aisles of my library, I was immediately drawn to the title of Georgia Bragg's How They Croaked: The Awful Ends of the Awfully Famous.  I have always liked scary books and, after reading John Green's Looking for Alaska, I became obsessed with famous people's last words.  Bragg's book takes a humorous look at the deaths of famous people from history.  Henry VIII is referred to as "Humpty Dumpty" and Edgar Allan Poe as a "disaster magnet."  Although very tongue-in-cheek in nature, Bragg's descriptions are historically accurate.  The last fifteen pages of the book include sources and further reading.  Along with the funny text, illustrator Kevin O'Malley adds his comical drawings of these famous endings.  We get a strong picture of what happened through drawings, autopsy reports, and fun facts.  Bragg's book can seem macabre to the average reader, but he/she will soon be laughing at the ridiculous and eccentric lives and deaths of famous people.

How They Croaked: The Awful Ends of the Awfully Famous
written by Georgia Bragg
illustrated by Kevin O'Malley
Scholastic Incorporated, 2012
picture book, ages 10-14
lexile measure: 950

Awards/Recognition:
Notable Children's Books: 2012

Pictured to the Left:

Kevin O'Malley's drawings of each historic person help to start the chapters on a humorous note.  For this drawing, Edgar Allan Poe's famous vices and characters are in the background, and his face shows the depression and woe for which he was well known.

Pictured Below:

One of my favorite visuals in the book is the last page where Bragg shows the unique connections between the famous people via a "family tree" graphic.  On this page, the reader can see that Henry VIII married the daughter of Christopher Columbus's benefactors and that Napoleon is connected to five different people including marrying Marie Antoinette's grandniece.  What a small and crazy world we live in, and we can see this evidence in How They Croaked.

SUGGESTIONS

READERS

This book relates to all different types of readers, but especially the reluctant junior high reader.  The mix of humor and death appeals to that age group and the funny drawings and quirky writing keeps them entertained.  As an adult, I really enjoyed the book, but I can see that it would be considered "too young" for some adults.  I especially think this book would be a fun way to introduce a biography lesson.  Teachers could show students that reading about a famous person does not have to be boring.

WEB RESOURCES
Find a Grave
A very cool website that allows visitors to search cemeteries to see the graves of famous people.  When you search a person's name you are linked to a website with information about his/her life and death as well as pictures of the grave site.

Famous Last Words
This link is to a YouTube video of John Green.  In the video, Green gives the famous last words of 50 different people.

Book Trailer
The book trailer link is a video on YouTube that gives a good introduction to the blood and gore you will find in Bragg's text.

ACTIVITY

This book would be perfect for Halloween time!  I think a good activity would start with students picking a famous historical person from Bragg's book.  Then split up the book for them to read or read it together, etc. - whatever works best for your classroom.  After they have read the section on their person, have them create a tombstone for him/her and an epitaph.  Epitaphs are a fun way to commemorate a person's death.  Here is a link to a lesson on writing epitaphs from Read Write Think.  It needs minor adaptations to fit this assignment.  Epitaph Lesson  After they have created the tombstones, hang them up around your room to share!

SIMILAR READING

I chose the books below because they fit into the same "death" genre as How They Croaked; they are all deal with death through scary stories, burial, and bones.  I tried to find different age levels for different reading groups.

Bury the Dead: Tombs, Corpses, Mummies, Skeletons, & Rituals by Christopher Sloan
Age Range: 5th Grade to 8th Grade
This book examines the burial practices from ancient times to present day.

Ask the Bones: Scary Stories from Around the World by Arielle North Olson and Howard Schwartz
Age Range: 3rd Grade to 6th Grade
This is a collection of scary folktales from countries around the world.

The Book of the Dead by John Mitchinson and John Lloyd
Age Range: Adult

This book is an adult version of the book I reviewed.  It gives sixty-eight biographies but provides information "their official biographers would have unquestionably left out."

Looking for Alaska by John Green
Age Range: 9th Grade and Up

Although not nonfiction, this book has such authentic emotion and heart that it feels real.  John Green paints the picture of Miles and Alaska: students at a boarding school who seek the "Great Perhaps" together.