As a reader of children's books, both in my childhood and now I found this book to be very interesting. Each author had a few pages that talked about their childhood and what inspired them to become an author. Thinking from a child's perspective - the readers who come into my library though...
biography is not a big seller in my library, unless it is a current musician, sports hero, or assigned for a report and collective biographies are worse
most of the authors in this book were popular when I was a kid, while I do have some who check out Blume or Cleary it isn't much, having more modern authors would have been better

I could have done without the illustrations by Doogie Horner, but maybe those will appeal to the age range at which this is aimed. The actual content on the other hand was at times entertaining and interesting, but the racism and genderism inherent in the choice of writers featured here bothered me immensely, and it's why I cannot recommend this book. It's long past time to take a stand against white American males being the only important people in the world. We see it on TV, we see it in movies, and we see it in books. It needs to stop.

The book is not about children who are authors, but about the childhood of now well-known authors. The details are necessarily brief: each author gets ten or eleven pages on average, of quite large, liberally-spaced print and some of that space is taken up by the illustrations. At the back there is a half dozen or so pages with one paragraph 'also-rans' which is interesting because it includes writers like Alice walker and Maya Angelou who apparently didn't make it into the 'big time' here, but even in this section, most of the writers appear to be white American males like no one else is worth listening to.

The book has an introduction which I skipped as I routinely do, because introductions (prefaces, author's notes, forewords, prologues and so on) are wasteful of paper, are antiquated, and really tell us nothing useful. I rather get right into the body of the work than waste my time on frivolity.

Some of the stories are upsetting, when you realize what some kids had to go through to get where they got, and that isn't over today either, but how much more of a struggle is it for some authors to get ten pages in a book like this? Other stories are endearing or amusing, so there's something for everyone, but that said, the vast preponderance of coverage is of white American male authors which represent eleven out of the sixteen - almost seventy percent - who get ten pages here. Four of the others are British, and one is French.

That's a seriously limited coverage in a world where two-thirds of the planet's population is Indian or Chinese, fifty percent of the planet is women, and most of the planet isn't white. There are only three are non-white (two African Americans and one American Indian) authors represented here so it bothered me that children reading this might get the impression that only America (and maybe Britain) has anyone who can write, and nearly all those who can write are white men. This is neither an accurate nor a realistic impression, nor is it a useful one to give children in a world where whites are the real minority.

This is a skewed view which is already being hammered into young peoples' heads by the appalling number of novels coming out of the US which are also set in the US (or if they're set abroad, they star Americans, like no one else ever has anything to say or any adventures to write about), and largely written about white characters.

This Trump mentality is isolationist and very dangerous, so I would have liked to have seen a much wider coverage and more female authors (who get less than forty percent representation here). Also the youngest writer represented here was born in 1971! Almost half of them were not even born last century! 13 of the sixteen were born before the 1950's! It's not being ageist to ask for a sprinkling of younger writers! And could there not have been more females, more people of color, including an Asian or two?

Could there not have been a Toni Morrison or an Octavia Butler? A Clarice Lispector or a Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie? A Zadie Smith or an Elena Ferrante? A Lu Min, a Zhang Ling? No Jenny Han or Tahereh Mafi? No Jhumpa Lahiri or an Indu Sundaresan? There are so many to choose from, so it's a real shame that this book evidently went with the easiest, the commonest, the path of least resistance? It felt lazy to me at best.

These are the authors which do appear:

JRR Tolkien (white, English, b. 1892)
JK Rowling (white, English, b. 1965)
Edgar Allen Poe (white, American, b. 1809)
Sherman Alexie (American Indian, b. 1966)
Lewis Carroll (white, English, b. 1832)
Laura Ingalls Wilder (white, American, b. 1867)
Zora Neale Hurston (black, American, b. 1891)
Mark Twain (white, American, b. 1910
Judy Blume (white, American, b. 1948
Langston Hughes (black, American, b. 1902
Jules Verne (white, French, b. 1828)
Roald Dahl (white, Welsh, b. 1916)(
Stan lee (white, American, b. 1922)
Beverly Cleary (white, American, b. 1916)
Lucy Maud Montgomery (white, American, b. 1874)
Jeff Kinney (white, American, b. 1971)

The book had at least one inaccuracy: it proclaims that Joanne Rowling (now Murray) was Joanne Kathleen Rowling, but she never was. It was only Joanne Rowling (pronounced 'rolling'). The 'Kathleen' came about because her weak-kneed and faithless publisher declared that boys wouldn't read a book written by a girl. They insisted that she use her first initial and a fake middle initial. Not having any clout back then, she chose the 'K' for 'Kathleen', the name of her grandmother.

This is why I despise Big Publishing, but at least I have the knowledge that a dozen idiot publishers turned down her Harry Potter series and thereby lost a fortune. The sad thing is that now they're trying to make up for it by buying every idiotic magician series ever produced, which is cheapening the whole genre. This why I self publish. I refuse to let blinkered publishers try to tell me what my name should be. I'd rather sell no books than deal with people like that.

So, in short, this could have been a hell of a lot better and I cannot recommend it.

With its easy reading and humorous illustrations, this book is for both children and adults. I learned so much about my favorite authors: their childhood, their inspiration for their stories. David Stabler is a great story teller, I never felt like I was reading a bibliography.

Quirk books have instantly become one of my favorite publishers over the last two years. Whenever I see their name, I have come to expect the highest quality book around. The latest edition of Kid Legends is no exception.

This book covers a wide variety of authors, the ones they did not dedicate full stories too are included in the index in the back. Shakespeare to Rowling to Woolfe, the authors included in the book cover a variety of genres, so it would be at the teacher/parents discretion whether or not to cover particular authors. The stories are engaging and fun to read. When reading a few selected biographies out loud, my children were able to ask a lot of questions, which opened up a lot more conversation between us.

Zora Neal Hurston and Langston Hughes. These two authors alone are the main reason I want to own a copy of this book. I have a huge fan of Harlem Renaissance and African American Literature, finding these two in the main section of the book, brought me a lot of joy. With the inclusion of Ralph Ellison (Invisible Man), Alice Walker (The Color Purple), Richard Wright, and Maya Angelou; Kid Authors offer a variety of well-known authors, with tidbits about their personal lives we would not have known (unless you did a lot of research). Thank you for including these authors, sometimes I feel many African American authors are forgotten as time passes (i.e. Hurston), it's great to see their names referenced in a variety of literature for all ages. On the chapter about Langston Hughes, it says "he was voted class poet in eighth grade unanimously, but he had not written a poem yet, at least outside of his mind. So he went and started writing to prove himself." I read this line to my son last night, as he was also unanimously voted class president; and he got very excited at the thought of a famous writer also being class president.

Having the ability to see how the author's childhood directly influenced some of their major works was huge. I was never a fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder, but......I am now a little more interested and have added "Little House on the Prarie" to my reading list.

I would highly recommend this book for anyone looking to add a great non-fiction children's book to either their in-home library or classroom library. My children are 5 & 8, I'm 34--we all enjoyed reading this book.

Kid Authors is a new middle grade (on the lower end of that spectrum, I would say) nonfiction book from Quirk Books in their series of fun stories about famous people when they were younger. Written by David Stabler, the book has many delightful color illustrations by Doogie Horner.

The book covers a diverse selection of authors, although most of them would be familiar to children, and they are mostly American. Some of the stories were more focused on specific events than others, which made them stronger in my opinion, and almost all related back to how they became authors. I found Sherman Alexie's really interesting, and I didn't know that Edgar Allen Poe was a foster child! Unfortunately, Laura Ingalls Wilder's was not much new if you're familiar with the Little House series.

A paragraph in Langston Hughes's chapter really stood out to me: he was voted class poet in eighth grade unanimously, but he had not written a poem yet, at least outside of his mind. So he went and started writing to prove himself. That's like some predestination craziness.

One thing I was a little surprised with was the use of "Indians" to refer to Native Americans all the time. It made sense in the Laura Ingalls Wilder story because of the time period, and there's a great illustration of an exasperated Native American frustrated about how they'd left for a little and suddenly some settlers moved in. But otherwise, I was surprised they didn't use Native Americans as well, as it is so much more accurate and I think that's important in a children's book.

There are also little facts about other authors' childhoods in the back, which were pretty fun. The best one was absolutely Earnest Hemingway, that All-American Man, who was dressed in his older sister's clothes until he was 5 and his mother said he was her daughter "Ernestine"!!!

This is definitely something great to have in the classroom!

This is a fun read. I squealed with delight upon seeing some of the authors included. These stories are easy to read and not bogged down with overwhelming information. Perfect for those who are reluctant to read nonfiction.

This collection of short biographies of famous authors focuses on each author as a child, and what childhood experiences and situations led that person to become a writer.
Including interesting biographies about authors such as Lucy Maud Montgomery, Laura Ingalls Wilder, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Roald Dahl, J.K. Rowling, Sherman Alexie, and Stan Lee; this book covers authors from a wide variety of backgrounds and time periods for an eclectic look at what inspires readers to become writers.

I loved reading about how particular childhood experiences like being bullied, being bitten by a giant spider, or growing up on a farm, directly influenced an author's published works. It's wonderful to see how these everyday things from childhood had a profound connection to the later writing that became so famous.

I was pleased to see many of my favorite authors in this book, and at the end of the book each page is filled with short paragraphs about even more authors, including just one little factoid about their childhood. So some authors get several pages of bio, and some authors only have one paragraph at the end. I liked that they added in extra authors at the back!

The writing is engaging and fun to read. The stories are inspiring and thoughtful, and I enjoyed reading through each one. This book really made me think about my roots, what first attracted me to books, and how I first began to experiment with words and wrote my own little stories in school. Each author's childhood story is accessible and memorable, and I was able to see myself in their shoes.
I loved this book! This would be perfect to read in a classroom or as a family!

Disclaimer: I received an ecopy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a free and honest review. All the opinions stated here are my own true thoughts and are not influenced by anyone.

Young readers will be inspired by the stories of some of their favorite authors humble beginnings.

An fantastic compilation of authors both old and modern from a broad stretch of children's fiction from J.K Rowling to Lewis Carroll. Great accompanying illustrations and doodles make this book widely entertaining and inspiring. I'd highly recommend this to every child with a creative mind!

Anecdotes about famous authors before they were famous. My students will enjoy reading about J.K. Rowling and Jeff Kinney and will discover new authors. Short chapters divided into three sections. Pencil drawings are dotted within each story. Will be purchasing this as well as the others in the series.

Fun set of biographies of famous authors. Humorous illustrations and the type of anecdotes about their young days that is likely to appeal to younger students. Stories highlight the ways in which they were independent thinkers or slightly quirky as children.

Kid Authors is a collection of short biographies on a wide array of authors. Each biography includes a few unique facts about the author's childhood, people who were important to the author and ways in which the author was connected to reading and writing. The passages were just enough to tease the reader and give a little background, but could leave the reader wanting more. The one thing that stood out to me was the vast variety of authors included in the book making this a title that didn't focus on one particular age group. The authors ranged from J.R.R. Tolkien and Mark Twain to Jeff Kinney and Beverly Cleary. This wide range makes me hesitant to order this book for my K-4 library. At the end there were some random facts about authors that weren't included in the book. Again the range of authors was a curious one. My elementary students will not be reading anything by Alice Walker or Virginia Woolf any time soon. It may have been helpful to have two versions of this book. One for elementary students and one for middle/high school students.

Roald Dahl era un assaggiatore segreto di cioccolata; Jules Verne naufragò nella Loira, finendo per qualche ora su un isolotto; J. K. Rowling dovette combattere contro i bulli, come l'irresistibile Lewis Carrol, nonostante il suo fisico fragile; Edgar Allan Poe invece era un po' bullo, mentre Mark Twain era scatenato, quanto e più il suo Tom Sawyer.

Sedici autori, sedici infanzie, sbocciate in opere che hanno influenzato generazioni di lettori.

Ed è bello, che siano state vicende liete o tristi, vedere come sono state superate, seminando grande letteratura.

Delizioso, come il precedente Kid artists: e come Kid artists, mi auguro di cuore che venga portato in Italia da qualche illuminato editore. ^^

This is a great collection of stories from the childhoods of famous authors. I loved reading these vignettes from the lives of authors that I love and authors that I know my students love, too. The stories are written with just enough embellishment that they're exciting and entertaining, and I was very pleased with how inspirational as well as entertaining many of the stories were.

This would be great to use in a classroom as part of an author study, or just to read through to discuss themes of perseverance. I definitely plan to share some of these stories at the beginning of the year to direct my students to some authors they may not have tried before.

An interesting and sometimes humorous look at the lives of popular authors. The format follows that of the other popular "Kid" books, giving you an overview of their lives that led to writing. The other "Kid" books are almost constantly checked out at the middle school library I work in, and I anticipate this will be as well.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading about so many favorite authors' childhoods and inspirations for their writing. This will make a great additions to the classroom to show students the author connections to real life and their writing life.

As a children's librarian, I have several guidelines in evaluating nonfiction: Is the subject matter appropriate for the audience, and is it accurate? Kid Authors fell short on both counts. A wide range of authors are included. Some like Jeff Kinney will clearly interest today's kid. Others may be unfamiliar, like Zora Neale Hurston and Jules Verne, but certainly worth learning about. However the vocabulary ranges from simplistic to this final phrase about Edgar Allen Poe: "theatrical panache of a master thespian" I think the author should pick a style that is understandable to a 9-12 year old and stick with it.
I'm also not convinced that most kids if left to their own devices care about the origins of writers. If this is for a school assignment, this format really wouldn't provide the kind of information students are looking for.
Distilling information for this age range can be challenging. How much to include and how nuanced should it be. Some of these entries appear to be lifted from interviews and memoirs, and I won't argue with the memories of the author being spotlighted, but I did feel that Stabler owed it to his audience to check the information with other sources. One example stood out as he described Judy Blume reading "the latest Nancy Drew murder mystery...which she bought almost every week with her allowance." First the Nancy Drew mysteries, certainly in the early years, dealt more with burglaries and kidnapping than murder, and checking Wikipedia for publication information, I learned a new adventure came out yearly, not weekly. These may seem like petty issues, but if simple efforts on my part at fact checking brought up questions, I would expect the author to do better.
The purpose of this book and the others in this series seems to be to show kids that even our most well-known and loved heroes had challenges to overcome, and readers should thus be inspired to do the same. This is a worthy goal, but I wish the author had allowed the stories to unfold without hitting the reader over the head about fighting bullies and being loners.
One plus in this book are the charming illustrations by Doogie Horner. They should definitely appeal to the fans of today's graphic novels.
In conclusion, I don't feel this would be a good addition to my library although there may be individual kids curious to know more about the childhoods of classic authors.

The newest book in the Kid Legends series doesn't disappoint. This book gives childhood details for well-known authors lives. This book includes both current well-known authors, like Jeff Kinney and J.K. Rowling, and others that are more "classic", such as Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain. Hopefully the end matter at final publishing will include a list of titles that each author has written, because there were one or two that I wasn't familiar with, and didn't know what they had even written.

Snapshots into the childhoods of favorite authors. This book made me smile, laugh aloud, and give mental high fives to the authors when relatable stories resonated with my own childhood. This will definitely have a place in my classroom library!

Loved this book! The stories are cute and the chapters are short. It encourages kids to get to know these authors because of the interesting stories.