The Dreadful, Smelly Colonies: The Disgusting Details About Life in Colonial America

by Elizabeth Raum, Patrick Spero (Consultant), Christine Peterson (Editor)

Describes the disgusting details about daily life in the American Colonies, including housing, food, and sanitation.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Thanksgiving, Middle Grade, Childrens, American History, Picture Books

32 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

As a child, I loved writing reports. For me, doing research has always been a kind of treasure hunt. My treasures are the facts that create pictures of past worlds and faraway places. I've put those facts into nearly 100 biographies, histories, and science books for young readers. I've also written two picture books and several interactive adventures that place you, the reader, inside the story. I hope that all my books lead you to imagine yourself in some intriguing place among fascinating people. Every book should take readers on new adventures in this big, beautiful world of ours.

Happy travels!

Author website: www.elizabethraumbooks.com

Reviews

[Dolly]

We've read many of the books in the You Wouldn't Want To... series and our girls just love them. We also discovered the Top 10 Worst... series, too, and we were happy to note that the author/illustrator/series creator have collaborated on both. Then we discovered this book. The title is certainly intriguing and appealed to our girls.

This is a fascinating book that follows along in the same vein, filled with interesting and disgusting facts about colonial times in America. The book describes different aspects of life during this time in history in some detail, although the information provided about each topic is relatively short and would not be comprehensive enough to base a report on. The narrative is not nearly as sensational as you would expect from the title.

We found this book at the Jamestown Settlement Museum gift shop and we bought it as a souvenir. I love that our girls get excited to read nonfiction books, and these books certainly aren't boring. We gave this book to our oldest daughter's teacher after we read it.

[Peggy]

1. In school, we happen to have a number of "modern conveniences." Do you know what that term means? I camped in Colorado this summer, and I learned one "modern convenience" I love is the bathroom. I love showering, washing my hands, and having a toilet to use. This summer when I had to use the restroom, I was handed a shovel. What do you suppose people did when they lived in colonial times? How would you use the restroom if there was a blizzard? If I am very sick today, I go to the doctor's office, and sometimes get medicine. What did they do in colonial times? In FCS, you learn that food can only safely sit out for two hours. What happens if it sits out longer? When you look at this book, really read carefully, and notice the words and pictures, there are a lot of gross and disgusting things to learn.


2. Opening moves: Draw attention to the genre, raise questions to spark curiosity, activate background knowledge, prompt the listeners to notice details.

3. As testing becomes our means of assessing knowledge, we are taking away some of the "Wow!" of teaching. A book like this can provide a lot of disgusting, and very real details of colonial life. When students learn about disease treatment, food storage, and some of the more disgusting things of colonial times, they can make more real connections. I usually have a few "Life Skills" students in my social studies classroom, and this type of knowledge is what they really remember. Sometimes, learning can just be fun. In middle school, a book like this fits the bill.


4. (April 01, 2010) School Library Journal
http://www.booksinprint2.com.leo.lib....

[Mikaela]

Genre: Informational
Grade Level: 3rd-5th

As disgusting as reading through this book was, it was cool to see a unsugarcoated version of how our country came to be. Oftentimes, the story of the United States' beginning is that people came, and we began, not how much those people suffered and smelled. The most disgusting part to me was hearing one lady didn't bathe for 28 years! I cannot imagine going more than a day without showering, I can't imagine how gross she must have been.

[Kim Dennis]

This is a super short read -- maybe 10 minutes reading out loud. However, it has several fun facts about life in the colonies. There were a few things in here that I didn't know. It is written for younger children, but I still think I may end up reading this to my 8th graders. (In spite of wanting to be "grown up" they still tend to like these sorts of things.) :)

[Meredith]

A good book to for middle grade readers to use as a starting point for understanding colonial customs and social norms. This book was a lot shorter than expected, and does not include much text. It's good for 8-11 year olds, and kids that enjoy reading about "gross" history. My students that enjoyed, "I Feel Better With a Frog in My Throat" also enjoyed this book.

[Bonni]

This is a fun and informative picture book about life in early Colonial America. The facts are presented in an interesting way with illustrations and photographs. The author did a good job engaging a young reader's interest. I mean, what kid doesn't want to read about dreadful and smelly things?

[Dani]

My son is taking an online middle school US History course. This book was a great addition to enhance learning. History content can be dry but this kept his interest and he found it to be "disgustingly informative."

[Angela Hedworth]

This was a really good way to get kids introduced into life in the Colonies. Both of my girls (9 and 11) enjoyed it. Good talking points too!

[Tashara]

Read this to my us history middle schoolers. They enjoyed it

[The Reading Countess]

We all know that we should thank our lucky stars that we were born in a time and place that embraces regular bathing, serves food that (for the most part) is insect free, and doesn't pursue people different from others in a witch trial. Well, two out of the three modern conveniences aren't bad. We also do have modern plumbing. There's that.

My students are going to be equally grossed out as well as enthralled, just like their teacher was. We will enjoy this awesomeness of the colonial period during our unit on The Witch of Blackbird Pond.

Good stuff!

[Duane]

This book has nice illustrations when it comes to the topic, but it tends to be vague and really not that interesting. There are better books about this topic out there.

[Matthew]

What a nice way to liven up a dull subject. Play to the students' sense of disgust. Nicely done.

[Abraham Ray]

great book about colonial days!

[wildct2003]

More colonial history than just disgusting details.