Before They Were Authors: Famous Writers As Kids

Reviews

1. 

   Baryl – July 24, 2024

   Wonderful Inspirational Book
   Love this book! It’s great to know these successful authors started out with struggles just like everyone else. Very inspiring! Very informative! I highly recommend this book especially to aspiring writers.

2. 

   celine – July 24, 2024

   This is so inspiring
   My daughters and me learned so much …. This is something you want elementary kids to read.

3. 

   Suad – July 24, 2024

   How interesting!
   I seriously enjoyed reading this book! Sure, it was a quick read, but how interesting! I loved the illustrations, and the simplified, yet interesting, manner that Elizabeth Haidle uses to tell her stories and the stories of these incredible writers.I actually found it to be quite educational and also, inspiring. It kind of makes you want to get up and do something productive with yourself. Definitely recommend reading it with your children, I think they will be really enamored by some of the individuals highlighted in this book.

4. 

   Panda Incognito – July 24, 2024

   This Book Was SO GREAT Until the Next-to-last Chapter Ruined Everything
   This was BEAUTIFUL. I loved it. The graphic novel format suits each chapter well, and I enjoyed learning more about the childhoods of popular authors and authors that I grew up reading, especially since Haidle shares writing-related quotes from each author at the end of each chapter. This is a great way to encourage young writers, and I was full of warm, happy feelings as I read this, sure that I would rate it four or five stars.But! But! After all that excitement, I got to the next-to-last chapter, which is about C.S. Lewis. I read slowly, taking in every illustrated detail about my favorite author’s life, but after I got to the end, I had to look back and see if I had somehow skipped over a page. Or maybe I had missed a sentence.Nope. This author just thought it was a good idea not to even MENTION that C.S. Lewis was a Christian.She didn’t even allude to it! She covered all of the important biographical turning points from his life, from his mother’s death, to his boarding school experiences, to his delight in Norse mythology, but she could not bring herself to mention his conversion from atheism to Christianity, even though it is the most central thing about his life and work.This completely ruined the whole book for me. I enjoyed it so much, but then the author betrayed my trust and my interest by leaving out the most important detail about my favorite author. I once excoriated another book for sharing a biographical sketch of Bonhoeffer without mentioning that he participated in an assassination plot against Hitler and was imprisoned and executed because of it. Little did I know, that author was ahead of the game for even mentioning that he was a man of faith!WHAT IS WRONG with these authors? I’m not going to openly accuse Elizabeth Haidle of religious prejudice, since I know absolutely nothing about her other than her name and her authorship of this book, but as far as I can see, that is the only logical explanation for why she would write about C.S. Lewis without mentioning his faith. She does note that he discussed cosmology and theology with J.R.R. Tolkien, but so what? That doesn’t tell his life story. That doesn’t address how his core beliefs permeated every aspect of his work. C.S. Lewis is considered the foremost Christian apologist of the twentieth century, and even if you’re only evaluating his books for children, his faith is still HIGHLY RELEVANT. You can’t fully understand the Chronicles of Narnia without understanding his beliefs. Christianity was not a side-note to his life that you can skip over. It shaped everything about his work, and there is no way to write a historically accurate bio without at least mentioning his faith.I wouldn’t actively discourage someone from reading this book, since the other chapters are thoroughly enjoyable and appear complete, but the author’s complete lack of historic credibility and integrity regarding C.S. Lewis disgusts me so much that I cannot rate this book on a curve and must give it a protest rating instead. Those who share my appreciation for Lewis or my high standards for historical writings should take warning.