How They Croaked: The Awful Ends of the Awfully Famous

• Grade Range: 5th-9th
• History related title
• Georgia Bragg, Illustrated by Kevin O’Malley
• How They Croaked: The Awful Ends of the Awfully Famous
• Publisher: New York, Walker & Co.
• 2011
• 184 pages.
• ISBN: 978-0-8027-9817-6
• Awards: North Carolina Children’s Book Award Nominee~Cybils Award (Non-Fiction)~ALA Notable Children’s Book (ALA)~IRA/CBC Young Adults’ Choice~Kentucky Bluegrass Award Nominee~Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers (YALSA)~Texas Lone Star Reading List~Truman Readers Award Nominee~Volunteer State Book Award Nominee~Garden State Book Award Nominee (Teen)
• Author’s website: http://georgiabragg.com/

Georgia Bragg lays out the big ugly sad mess of death and how it did in 19 famous individuals. Her chatty and irreverent style is matched by Kevin O’Malley’s macabre cartoons.

Too often history for children omits the nasty bits. Bragg has single handedly righted that wrong: compiling all the grossest facts about the most gruesome ends of notable individuals from Pocahontas to Albert Einstein. As she forthrightly points out in her introduction: this is not a book for the squeamish. Even if you think you know how gruesome medicine was in the past, nothing could prepare you for the terrible ends of Beethoven or James Garfield: stomach drill or egg and whisky enema, anyone? And as King Tut, Napoleon and Albert Einstein’s corpses could tell you: even if the doctors don’t get you, the souvenir hunters will.

Bragg’s tone is often flippant: Darwin was “a few cards short of a full deck.” Her ‘take no prisoners’ style keeps the narrative rollicking along, as she blithely piles lurid fact on top of ghastly detail. Each chapter gives the circumstances of death and provides context for the historical period. Between each chapter is a two-page spread of facts tangentially related to the previous subject. Among myriad memorable items we learn a few priceless things Pocahontas noticed about King James I and the definition of Napoleon complex.

While the immediate effect of all this information may be to send you speeding to the bathroom to wash your hands, ultimately the account will impress you with both human fortitude and the endless remarkable stories history contains. Bragg’s enthusiasm is infectious and reader’s will be hard pressed not to share gruesome anecdotes and fun facts. However, as Bragg points out: “the people in this book didn’t become famous because of how they croaked but because of how they lived.” Not only does How They Croaked make an excellent elective read, it would be a fabulous way to fire up students before a biography assignment.

Front matter: Contents come complete with humorous and tastelessly named chapters: Marie Curie – You Glow Girl. An Introduction packs a strong warning advising those without ‘guts for gore’ to turn back. Back Matter: ‘One More Thing’ reminds readers of the important lives the famous dead lived and urges readers to emulate them and find something worth devoting your life to, since eventually everybody’s story ends. A diagram notes connections among the historic figures. Acknowledgements thank those who encouraged the author. Extensive bibliographic sources are divided by individual and chapter. Bless her heart-Bragg includes a wonderful annotated selection of further reading and surfing sources for kids, again divided by subject. An index concludes the book.