I was at a library conference last month and went to a session on books for boys. It was a great session and I came away with some great titles to check out. The first one I went for was this one:
Does that scream BOY, or what!? Each chapter takes a famous person from history and discusses their death in gory, gross, and grisly details. Some of the awfully famous people covered in this book are: King Tut, Henry the VIII, Pocahontas, Marie Antoinette, Napoleon Bonaparte, Darwin, and Einstein. There are nineteen people total.
Each chapter is only a few pages long and end with a more in depth look at something mentioned in the chapter, such as Steps for Successful Leeching, or the Secret Service Timeline. The writing is quick, witty, and above all, gross. Did you know that Darwin threw up 4 million times before he died? Proven fact because he kept a log of it all.
I feel it is a definitely a book parents might want to read on their own first to make sure they want their child reading it. The only part that actually made me think this was in the chapter about Marie Antoinette. It mentions that it took seven years for her marriage to Louis to be “consummated”. If I was a parent, I think I would prefer to not be taken completely by surprise when my ten year old comes to ask me what consummated means. But maybe I’m dumb :)
One of my favorite parts of the book was the chart of connections at the end. It shows how most of these people were connected in some way. For example, Marie Antoinette’s grandniece was Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife. Bonaparte’s men discovered the Rosetta Stone, which helped decipher the hieroglyphics on King Tut’s tomb.
I thought it was a great book because not only did I feel a little bit smarter after each chapter, but it left me wanting to learn more. It has a great bibliography along with suggestions for “Further Reading and Surfing”. I checked out one of the websites the author recommended: www.findagrave.com It is a very fun website. You can look up a famous person’s name and it will bring back information about the person’s gravesite, along with pictures of the location. You can also leave “flowers” and a note on the grave if you would like. :)
