Member Reviews
Great quick read. Full of interesting information about the featured authors. Would recommend to my students as a great introduction to several well known authors.
The illustrations make the book so much fun! There are fifteen main biographies and several more with one or two sentences with "fun facts". I always look for books that relate to the students and help show them that everyone is special.
I was given the opportunity to read this by NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.
When I was little, I absolutely loved reading biographies of authors and historical figures, so I was really interested in this book. It's full of fun facts about famous authors to give you some insight into their childhood.
Cute book and comparable to the his other books like this one. Each chapter focuses on a different author and their lives as kids and includes fun illustrations.
Such a fun book! I loved reading about the kid versions of authors. It was equal parts funny and eye-opening. A great read.
Kid Authors: True Tales of Childhood from Great Authors by David Stabler is part of a series that includes Kid Presidents, Kid Artists, and Kid Athletes. The book features true tales of famous writers, from long before they were famous—or even old enough to drive. Did you know that Sam Clemens (aka Mark Twain) loved to skip school and make mischief, with his best friend Tom, of course! How about that a young J. R. R. Tolkien was bitten by a huge tarantula—or as he called it, “a spider as big as a dragon.” Did you know that as a toddler Zora Neale Hurston took her first steps when a wild hog entered her house and started chasing her! The inclusive collection of authors includes Roald Dahl, Beverly Cleary, J. K. Rowling, Langston Hughes, Jules Verne, Lewis Carroll, Stan Lee, and many more.
Kid Authors: True Tales of Childhood from Great Authors is an interesting read. The information on each author is short, but accessible and relatable to young readers that want to see authors as the children they once were, and understand that their favorite author had to suffer through somer of the same problems that they might face (or worse). I like that the authors discussed are varied, they all come from different backgrounds and write different types of books. This means that young readers and writers are likely to find at least one author described that they can connect with on some level. I knew some of the stories told, but did learn some new information and enjoyed getting a new look at authors like Rowling and Cleary. I would gladly have kept going with more information and more authors, but I think the book hit the right length and depth for the target audience.
This new take on biographical information of your favorite authors will definitely appeal to all age levels. It's fun and humorous look at the childhood lives of these authors as well as the illustrations accompanying the stories, will keep you engrossed in learning about their lives. The design of the book will make even the youngest reader want to learn more!
Kid Autors is a great read escpeically to inspire our students. I have recommended this book to my school librarian and to many of my students.
This was a really fun, quick and entertaining read. It was interesting to learn about the lives of the authors as children and I think kids will love this book. I'm definitely checking out the other books in the series!
Rating: 4 stars!
I enjoyed this book but my tweens didn't like it as much as other books in the series. I am not sure if it is because my children weren't interested in the material because they didn't want to be authors, or what the problem was really. I feel as though I would recommend this book to children who want to be authors, but I wouldn't recommend it to EVERY kid to read.
What a lovely accessible look at some of our favorite authors, as kids! The stories are fun filled with anecdotes from the author's lives really allowing you to get a glimpse of who they were...before. Plus, the illustrations are perfectly complementary and placed. Highly recommend.
Kid Authors features a series of interesting anecdotes about famous writers. Each mini-biography highlights various struggles (racism, poverty, medical conditions, absent parents, bullying, etc) that these authors faced while growing up and culminates in how they persevered to achieve success. There are also illustrations that add humor to these brief stories. My favorite sections were about the lives of J.K. Rowling, Edgar Allen Poe, Sherman Alexie, J.R.R. Tolkien, Zora Neal Hurston, and Roald Dahl. This book could be useful as a quick introduction to a variety of classic (Langston Hughes, Mark Twain) and contemporary writers (Stan Lee, Jeff Kinney) for an author's study or biography unit.
Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy.
This is an enjoyable middle-grades read, similar to others in the series. Kids will enjoy it.
This was a fun read for an adult and cool for kids. I found it will thought out and kind to the research that was entailed. It was a great resource in helping some kids find an author they could think is cool, and it was fun to envision their lives.
Kid Authors by David Stabler has unique short stories about famous writers when they were young. Each chapter highlights some aspect of a author's childhood. The tales are funny and heartfelt. What truly makes this book a winner is the fantastic illustrations by Doogie Horner. Brilliant! It would have been nice to mention more of the actual books they were famous for writing later in life so kids can connect the dots easier. Overall, young readers will be able to relate to the things that happened to these authors when they were kids. This book complements the rest of the series.
An adorable collection of true stories from the childhoods of famous writers - including Beverly Cleary, who grew up in Yamhill! I know where that is! Woo!
A great book with such insightful stories about the authors we all know and love. This would be a fantastic gift for my sister!
Sometimes you need a reminder that we all started out small. The beginning of some of the most inspiring writers can show others that you aren't just born one thing. You can achieve and write great things, even with a humble beginning. This is such an excellent book for any child that has said to themselves they want to be a writer. Even for those who haven't, because they think they can't. These stories will prove them wrong.
<p style="text-align: justify;">Kid Authors tells the stories of some great authors' upbringing and how their childhood came to shape their fiction. The stories are made simple and straight forward making them easy to read and enjoy. J.K. Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien, Edgar Allan Poe, Ronald Dahl, and Judy Blum are just some of the authors you get to drive into the childhood of. The red band that binds the stories together are how all these people had to face challenges, like childhood bullies, being orphaned or huge spiders, and the story shows how they still persevered. The stories are accompanied with simplistic illustrations illustrating events in each authors' story. I found Kid Authors very entertaining even though it is intended for children, and I think may avid reads would enjoy to read this book in order to hear about the childhood of their favorite authors.
A great and easy read! Engaging, heartfelt and colorful Stories everyone will enjoy.