June 30, 2024
By: Bill Conger
This time four years ago there were a lot of disappointments for Braedon Jett. The COVID pandemic had caused the loss of what would have been some key wonderful memories in the life of the 2020 D.C.H.S. graduate. He was planning to take a trip to Europe, compete in a state Political Science contest, and enjoy several other pivotal times in a senior’s life. Fast forward four years and life is much different.
Jett, a Tennessee Tech graduate in Marketing, has become a published author and actually traveled to a variety of countries from Madrid to Warsaw. The son of Mollie Bratten and Ryan Jett, he recently released his self-published book, Did People Have Beds Just for Eating Food? The 115-page book is the hilarious history of everything in your bedroom.
“It is a history book for kids, middle school and below, about everyday objects they have inside their bedroom,” Jett explains. “Some of the chapters go over video games, beds, clocks, closets, things like that, that almost every kid has.”
Jett, who originally had plans to major in History, knew he wanted to write a book but didn’t know what topic he wanted to explore.
“I thought maybe I’d like to do history, but I had no idea where I wanted to start with that. One day I was sitting in my room just looking around, and I think it was my clock that I looked at. I was thinking what’s the history behind it, where did it come from, how did we go from using shadows as clocks to having digital clocks on our nightstands. That’s where the idea came from. I went on from there. I wanted to do one for every object I can find in my room and my brother’s room. I walked around and picked up objects that I thought would have an interesting history behind it.”
From emperors sleeping on rocks to rich Victorian women with jeweled bugs crawling all over them, this book contains crazy funny facts about your bedroom.
“I’m not naïve. I know a lot of people don’t have the same love for history that I might have, but I still think history is an important thing to learn about. I’m not a big fan of math, but I understand it’s still an important subject to learn about. So, I tried to be child friendly in writing this book, but also I wanted it to be interesting enough for people who might not have that interest in history like I do … and maybe give them curiosity to learn about normal things around their house.”
I didn’t want to make an American-centric book. I wanted to take history from all over the world because that’s what history is. It impacts everyone around the world so I wanted to take objects not just from Europe but also things from the Middle East to Africa, the Americas before the Spanish came over. I wanted to take all that to diversify the history and also possibly get kids from other parts of the world interested in the book as well.
Jett is already writing his follow-up book, the second in a continuing series on the fun facts about others parts of the house.
“The next book I am writing currently is over bathrooms. I think that would be very enjoyable for kids. I only have five chapters so far. I think it’s really funny.”