Nonfiction Monday: How They Croaked

How They Croaked: The Awful Ends of the Awfully Famous Georgia Bragg illustrated by Kevin O'Malley

Back in March, I was driving to work on a Saturday morning and listening to Weekend Edition. I love Weekend Edition because, around 8:50, they often talk about kidlit and it's the last story I hear before getting out of the car.

On that fateful day, they were talking with Georgia Bragg about her book about the super-gross ways that super-famous people died. I had the book talk written before the interview was done. Then, I got to work and was talking with a coworker who said "I just heard something on the radio about a book that sounds really great..."

And, really great it is! It took me FOREVER to read though, because it turns out, I do A LOT of my reading while I'm eating. This is not a book to read while eating. It's pretty disgusting. The descriptions of Marie Curie's body before she died "Her blackened fingertips were cracked and oozing, and she incessantly rubbed them together." That's pretty tame. Nothing like the grossness of Washington's mouth, Henry VIII exploding in his coffin, or Einstein's autopsy.

After every chapter, there are extra bits of related information. So, after talking about Washington's death, there extra information includes a list of bloodletting do's (select the largest vein at the bend of the arm) and don'ts (soak the patient in his own blood. Don't soak the sheets, either), Presidential Death Facts, Faces on American Money, and some selections from Washington's 110 Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversations.

Plus, lots of fun facts-- we're not really sure what Edgar Allen Poe died of, but current thinking is rabies.Charles Dickens was a jerk. James Garfield couldn't keep food down, so they gave him enemas of egg, beef extract, and whiskey.

It's history made fun and exciting. (Plus source notes!) The gross-out factor makes it an easy sell to reluctant readers (most likely boys) but there's enough science, history, music, arts, and extras to make it appeal to most kids. And, if you can get past the blatant gross-out factor, adults will enjoy it, too.

Today's Nonfiction Monday round-up is over at Chapter Book of the Day. Be sure to check it out!

Book Provided by... my local library

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Japanese Literature Challenge Review!

Hardboiled and Hard Luck Banana Yoshimoto trans. Michale Emmerich

This was the book I read for the Japanese Literature Challenge.

Death isn't sad. What hurts is being drowned by these emotions.

I am always a fan of Yoshimoto's quiet, understated prose and moods. Like Kitchen,this book is actually two novellas packaged together.

The first is Hardboiled, which is about a woman coming to terms with the death of her ex-lover, exactly a year ago. Part ghost story, the reader gets bits and pieces of relationship history as the story goes on, putting together what happened and why our narrator feels the way she does. And while the sense of loss and death permeate the story, it's not a sad story, just peaceful.

The second is Hard Luck. The narrator's sister, Kuni, is lying in a coma after suffering from a cerebral hemorrhage a few weeks before getting married. While there is part of this story that focuses on the family getting (emotionally) ready to remove her from life support, there is a family drama that gives a lot of anger to this story. After slipping into a coma, Kuni's fiance disappeared to deal with his grief at his parents house. Her parents are upset by actions they see as selfish and spineless. It's made worse by the fact that his brother, Sakai, does visit Kuni in the hospital almost daily, becoming close friends with the narrator. The reader feels almost as emotionally drained as the narrator as she tries to balance her new friendship and her plans for the future with her sorrow and the sorrow and anger of her parents.

Yoshimoto manages to convey so much in so few words, her books always end up haunting me.

Book Provided by... my wallet

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