Red-Haired Ash Reads

Lindsey Fitzharris is back with another fantastic medical history book for kids. Dead Ends! is all about the many weird medical cures that were mostly useless and often harmful, but sometimes led to an occasional discovery that would lead to an actually helpful thing. This book covers things like bloodletting, beheadings, body snatching, CPR, brains, amputation, and quite a few other things. 

This was a wonderful blend of medical history and humor that is just perfect for kids, or for adults too, especially those who are just dipping their toes into medical history. I have enjoyed all of Fitzharris’ books so of course I was going to get this book, even if it was a kids book. I learned quite a lot about some of the failed treatments in medical history. I found the CPR chapter to be the most interesting because it was something I had never researched before so finding out they would puff air up bums to try and bring people back was a bit amusing, and horrifying. 

After finishing this audiobook, my physical copy came in the mail so I was able to look at the illustrations that Teal did. The artwork was wonderful and worked perfectly with the text. I loved how it was all done in black and white with red accents that really made the images pop. My favorite image is probably the Nosferatu putting blood on toast in the blood-letting section. 

Overall, this was another great children’s book on medical history from Fitzharris. I think kids will love this, especially kids who like macabre and weird things. 

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Other books by this author:

• The Butchering Art
• The Facemaker
• Plague-Busters!