How They Croaked: The Awful Ends Of The Awfully Famous

Bragg, G., & O'Malley, K. (2011). How they croaked: The awful ends of the awfully famous. New York, NY: Walker &. Co.

Death. It's taboo. But knowing about it is incredibly enticing.  Georgia Bragg's unique style in the retelling of how the famous cease to exist fills the pages with facts, quotes, and additional details about the individuals in this book. Kevin O'Malley's illustrations add to the spooky, informal versions of these informative tales. They compliment how Bragg describes how these prominent people in history died. She also follows with additional tidbits of information about diseases that plagued at the time, medical procedures that were practiced in the day, scientific information about disorders, timelines of important events, and much more. It’s like history books within a huge history book.  Bragg's choice of words creates an environment that resembles those moments around the campfire.

Teachers can use these compilations of stories in a cross-curricular setting.  References to authors, medical scenarios, historical facts, and many other things can broaden the horizon to many lessons.

Parents can also use this to expand on the idea of death, the interesting lives behind the scenes in famous people, or to explore the events that led these famous people to their deaths.  It's definitely a challenging topic, but it's also a fun one.