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Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science

By: John Fleischman
Blood, brains and an iron bar
Kelly: ☻☻☻☻
Boy Reader: ☻☻☻

This book straddles the worlds of informative and narrative non-fiction. Phineas Gage lived in 1848 and lived through a dramatic open brain injury. By the end, the reader will know what phrenology is, what cork looks like under a microscope, and what happens if a tamping iron is shot through someone's head -- at just the right angle.

​At seventy-five pages, the length is manageable, yet even avid readers will pick up some new vocabulary. For the budding physician, it's a no brainer. (Ha!)

​The author obliges our need for gory details about the accident. My favorite sentence: "An Irishman standing by said, 'Sure it was so, sir, for the bar is lying in the road below, all blood and brains.'"

​Boy Reader gives it three stars because he prefers purely narrative non-fiction (like
Prisoner B-3087 and Every Falling Star). This book relates both the gory story of Phineas Gage's accident, and the drier account of Gage's contribution to the development of brain science.

​Four starts from me because (a) I always wanted to be a brain surgeon, and (b) it has the perfect length and complexity for a middle-grade non-fiction book.

Boyz Readz by Kelly Mroz

  • Home
  • About
  • Reviews
    • The BFG
    • The Black Pearl
    • Ella Enchanted
    • Every Falling Star
    • Frindle
    • From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
    • Grandmaster
    • Gregor the Overlander
    • Half Magic
    • The Martian
    • Nocturnals
    • The One and Only Ivan
    • Pay It Forward
    • Peak
    • Phineas Gage
    • Prisoner B-3087
    • The Quirks: Welcome to Normal
    • Ranger's Apprentice
    • The Red Pyramid
    • Simon Bloom: The Gravity Keeper
    • Spy X -- The Code
    • There's Treasure Everywhere
    • Upside-Down Magic
    • The Whisperer
    • Wings of Fire
    • The Worst Class Trip Ever
  • Contact
  • Top Lists