Title:  Phineas Gage

Author:  John Flieschman

Genre:  Nonfiction

            In the early 1800’s, a railroad worker named Phineas Gage had a life changing accident.  This young man was a foreman for his crew when the terrible accident occurred.  It involved his tamping iron and blasting powder.  Despite having a hole in his head, he was never the same old Phineas everybody knew.  Although this was a traumatizing event, it ended up helping people learn about the brain.

            The theme of this book is about whether or not Phineas Gage was lucky, or unlucky.  The author’s opinion was that he is lucky.  I both agree and disagree.  I believe he was lucky in some ways because it missed major parts of his brain. He was unlucky because the iron rod went through his head, and that right there is just not lucky.  Maybe there is no such thing as luck, it might just be the way you look at it.

            This book wasn’t my favorite, but I didn’t hate it. The things that I liked were the historic pictures and the details about his life.  Although at some points I found it very interesting, it was mostly boring and confusing.  Confusing because of all the medical terms and facts about the brain I didn’t understand. Since I didn’t understand a lot of the things it was saying, the book got boring fast!  I would rate this book at two stars.  If someone was learning about the brain or into rare stories then I would recommend this book to them, but not if you’re someone like me who doesn’t really enjoy nonfiction.