How They Croaked is a Disgusting Delight to Read Aloud. How They Croaked dives into the fascinating history of how some of the most famous people that ever lived died.
To be clear, this book is gross. It is engagingly, entertainingly disgusting at times. It is the kind of gross, though, that makes students love it! Every day I read it aloud in my classroom, I am met with the demands of my students to read the most disgusting death!
How They Croaked is a Disgusting Delight to Read Aloud
In order to be respectful of my students who may not like to hear disgusting things, I give a fair warning when I am about to read a disgusting part of the book. When I read a paragraph that describes Henry VIII’s body exploding in his coffin or how doctors poked their fingers in the bullet hole of James Garfield’s bullet wound, I give a fair warning to my students that the paragraph I am about to read is gross and that they have my permission to not listen.
Giving this warning is helpful for my students who don’t like gross things, but it is also an engagement all call to the entire classroom. It is like I am announcing to my class, “The words I am about to say are disgusting so listen up!” Basically that is what I am announcing to my room. It is quite effective. The students who aren’t grossed out, which is 99% of my classroom hang on my every word. I love it!
Informational Text Deep Dive
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One of the things I love when reading this book aloud is that it is a great mentor text for features of informational text. The book includes:
- Table of Contents in chronological order– I point out that the author organized this book in chronological order, explaining that King Tut lived so long ago, researchers are not certain on the dates that he lived and died. While Albert Einstein, the most recent death in the book, had a well documented history.
- Sidebar information at the end of each person’s chapter– I love the informative and sometimes humorous additions of information at the end of each person’s chapter. Edgar Allen Poe had a lot of personal tragedies when so many people he loved died of tuberculosis. At the end of his chapter, there is a interesting blurb sharing information on tuberculosis. Christopher Columbus has additional information on scurvy, while Charles Dickens had extra tidbits on Gout. Each subject had at least two or three additional pieces of informational text that helped to add nuance to their chapter. One of my personal favorites is the added information on Henry VIII’s chapter. It highlights how much food the court of Henry VIII would eat in a day. Let’s just say it was a staggering amount of food for 1,200 people!
- Timelines– There are a few timelines in this book that leads to a nice discussion and review on how timelines are used in informational text. One timeline, in James Garfield’s chapter, show the history of the secret service. Did you know that the secret service was originally created to protect money from being counterfeited? Another timeline in Christopher Columbus’s chapter highlights the history of Maps. It explains why Columbus thought he was going to reach India in 1492.
- Maps– There aren’t too many maps in this book, but the book lends itself nicely to discussing various locations of the where the subjects in How They Croaked were located. I would pull up google maps to show where the islands of Elba and St. Helena are located when discussing Napoleon. We would also look to see how close Egypt was to Italy when reading about Cleopatra and Caesar.
- Citations for each famous person– How They Croaked has thoroughly researched information for each subject. It lends itself nicely to additional readings if anyone is interested in any of the subjects.
Julius Caesar Word History
When reading the section on Julius Caesar, the sidebar at the end of his chapter discusses all of the words named after Caesar including- C-Section, Czar, and the month of July
I love word origins and I like to share with my students that prefixes in September, October, November and December don’t match the number month where they occur.
Sept- seven
Oct- eight
Nov- nine
Dec- ten
Interestingly Quintilis (the fifth month of the year) was renamed July after Julius Caesar and Sextillion (the sixth month of the year) was renamed August after Augustus Caesar. The new year began with March and later were January and February added, throwing the months of the year off with their mathematical meanings.
How to Read How They Croaked in the Upper Elementary Classroom
As I read the book aloud, I skip around the book. It usually takes me 7-10 minutes to read about a person’s death. I usually pair the super engaging deaths with another that is a tad less interesting. They are all amazing, but there are a few that are not as thoroughly enjoyable to read.
I make sure to start this read aloud with James Garfield, move on to Edgar Allen Poe, Henry VIII, and Einstein. I will often get requests for Cleopatra, George Washington and King Tut from my students. Because it is informational text and each person’s chapter is independent of one another, I love that I have the freedom to move around the book in no particular order.
Who Should Read How They Croaked?
This book is well loved and one that I cherish. Not only do I read it aloud toward the beginning of the year- it is usually the second book that I read to my class, I will remind parents of How They Croaked during conferences if they are unable to find a good book for their kids to read. This book is perfect for students who enjoy historical fiction, informational text or struggle to finish a book.
Due to the gross out factor, I would say it is for kids age 9ish and above, but a younger student who is not grossed out easily would be able to handle the information. I would not read it to an entire class of second or third graders though.
Other Books By Author Georgia Bragg
Georgia Bragg has a few other books that I keep in my read aloud library. The chapters/subjects written about in each book is the same profile of one person from history and then additional information related to that person.
The only thing about these two books that don’t make the entire books automatic read aloud is that I have found their subjects are a little drier and less interesting than How They Croaked as a whole. I like to refer to them throughout the year, as there are a few subjects from each that are fascinating.
- How They Choked: Failures, Flops, and Flaws of the Awfully Famous
- Caught: Nabbing History’s Most Wanted
Have you ever read this book aloud? What did you think?
