
Dead Ends!
Flukes, Flops & Failures That Sparked Medical Marvels
Bloomsbury · Print & ebook · October 14, 2025
A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year | A Chicago Public Library Best Kids' Book of the Year | A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year From New York Times bestselling author Lindsey Fitzharris, a riveting middle grade nonfiction book about medicine's most fascinating failures and dead ends.
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- Who it’s for
- Young readers curious about medical history and scientific mistakes.
- Themes
- Medical history, Failed treatments and discoveries, Learning from failure
- Pacing
- Fast
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Human Body TheaterMaris Wicks52% matchAlso shares Human Body
The Book of BloodHP Newquist61% matchAlso shares History of Science and Human Body
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Germs Make Me Sick!Melvin Berger55% matchAlso shares Human Body
The Circulatory StoryMary Corcoran55% matchAlso shares Human Body
For older readers: Discovering Life’s Story: Biology’s Beginnings, Strange Bedfellows, Blood, Bullets, and Bones
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A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year | A Chicago Public Library Best Kids' Book of the Year | A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year From New York Times bestselling author Lindsey Fitzharris, a riveting middle grade nonfiction book about medicine's most fascinating failures and dead ends. Beheadings! Bloodletting! Bodysnatching! Journey down a snaking road bristling with medicine's most astonishing “dead ends.”
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Marvel at the diagnoses, experiments, and treatments that were frequently useless, and often harmful, but that sometimes led doctors to discoveries that changed the world for the better. Enjoy a whirlwind tour of the human body-from brain, to heart, to limbs-during which New York Times bestselling author Lindsey Fitzharris and caricaturist Adrian Teal will guide you through centuries of medical mistakes, festooned with riveting facts, pitch-perfect humor, and vivid illustrations. Celebrate the flukes, flops, and failures that have given science a better understanding of our bodies and ways to treat them. This fascinating book of foul-ups is sure to delight young readers, and inspire them to embrace their failures, too!
Who it’s for
- Young readers curious about medical history and scientific mistakes.
- Middle grade readers who enjoy humorous, illustrated nonfiction.
Where it sits
| Illness & Injury | 81% |
|---|---|
| History of Science | 61% |
| Human Body | 54% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Illness & Injury
- Science & Nature
- History of Science
- Authors
- Lindsey Fitzharris, Adrian Teal
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury
- Published
- October 14, 2025
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Medical history · Failed treatments and discoveries · Learning from failure
- Reading lane
- Illness & Injury