How They Croaked: The Awful Ends of the Awfully Famous by Georgia Bragg
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
While I thought Bragg peppered each section with too much biography, there were a lot of long bits about illnesses and other suffering that kept the tone mostly consistent with the title. I took this book to a big literacy meeting to share, and got a lot of 'oh, that's nice' looks when I shared it. But I know this book would have circulated like crazy when I was in 4th-6th grades. It's not just death, it's the -how- that is interesting. Misconceptions about Cleopatra's death are cleared up, and obscure assassinated US President James Garfield gets slipped in with the actually famous. Each section brings up topics that get explored in a brief text feature at the end of the section: e.g., a section on how blood-cupping works, and a list of 'boneyard words'. O'Malley's b/w pen/ink caricature illustrations are consistent with the grim yet comic tone.
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