"How They Croaked: The Awful Ends of the Awfully Famous" by Georgia Bragg

I am a biography fan.  When I was in the sixth grade, I spent a good chunk of my free time in the school library going through the collection of biographies.  So, despite the gruesomeness, I was highly intrigued by How They Croaked: The Awful Ends of the Awfully Famous by Georgia Bragg.  Instead of focusing on the lives of those that filled our history books, it tells the tale of their demise.  That sounds kind of horrible, but this book was pretty fascinating (though at times a tad disgusting).  Sure I knew the history of Mario Antoinette, but didn't know about her life as a prisoner and the last words she spoke as she approached the guillotine.  I also didn't know about Mozart, Einstein or the plethora of other famous people included in this book.

I enjoyed that this book also included random facts that were quite interesting but might not fit into other books.  Each chapter ends with some sort of tidbit- whether is be various words that could be used in a crossword puzzle to mean "dead" or interesting tidbits about the historical figure.  This was a quick read, I polished it off in an evening.  I could definitely see tween boys enjoying this book, there is just enough gross tied in to keep the pages turning.

Happy Reading!
-Melly