Kid Athletes: True Tales of Childhood from Sports Legends

By David Stabler

Hilarious childhood biographies and full-color illustrations show how Tiger Woods, Gabby Douglas, Bruce Lee, Billie Jean King, and other budding sports champions faced kid-sized challenges growing up.

Forget the gold medals, the championships, and the undefeated seasons. When all-star athletes were growing up, they had regular-kid problems just like you. Baseball legend Babe Ruth was such a troublemaker, his family sent him to reform school. Race car champion Danica Patrick fended off bullies who told her “girls can’t drive.” And football superstar Peyton Manning was forced to dance the tango in his school play. Kid Athletes tells all of their stories and more with full-color cartoon illustrations on every page. Other subjects include Billie Jean King, Jackie Robinson, Yao Ming, Gabby Douglas, Tiger Woods, Julie Krone, Bruce Lee, Muhammad Ali, Bobby Orr, Lionel Messi, and more!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Quirk Books
• Release date: Nov 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781594748233

David Stabler

David Stabler is an author based in Brooklyn, New York. He specializes in reference books covering entertainment, sports, and world history.

Book preview

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Reviews for Kid Athletes

[rabid6reader · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a great collection of sports stories that explain the hardships of growing to be a star. Most of the stories are well-written and engaging, though some of the pictures included are a little silly or exaggerated. It emphasizes the hard work and sacrifice that athletes put in, but in such short summarizes it's hard to get a good sense of that. Good for an audience of 9-11 years, both boys and girls.

[winnemucca · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Kid Athletes is a great book for all ages. My junior high students love David Stabler's books. Kid Presidents was fantastic, too.I read this book quickly and took it into school to catalog and prepare for student check-out. Before I had time to catalog it, I already had a student asking to check it out. We did a primitive check-out with a sticky note.I waited for the book to be returned to write my review, but the student keeps renewing it. He REALLY is reading the book. Every junior high school library should have copies of Stabler's books. These are the perfect books when classes are required to read nonfiction. They get facts in a format that they love reading. I hope David Stabler adds to this series because it is really a hit.

[imtanner2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a collection of short, simply written biographies about famous athletes. It has lots of cartoon like pictures and the chapters are short enough and compelling enough to interest lots of different kinds of kids.

[carlathelibrarian · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Many people look up to sports stars, especially kids. Unfortunately, they are not all worthy of the hero designation, but the athletes in this book all overcame situations in their lives (particularly their childhood) to become the famous athlete they are recognized as being. David Stabler introduced us to well-known athletes and described their upbringing and struggles to get to the top. Both male and female athletes were highlighted and a variety of sports. Some of the issues they dealt with included racism, sexism, being sent to reform school as a child, being involved in a serious accident that resulted in serious physical damage and even lack of funds to participate in sports. Helping to overcome the odds the athletes usually had one person in their corner that made all the difference in turning their lives around, redirecting their negative energies into positive things, and turning mentors into heroes. if it wasn't a single person, it was family that pushed many athletes to do their best and overcome clumsiness or other issues. The last section in the book dealt with athletes who persevered and practised over and over to develop their skills. I enjoyed the stories and learned about some of the athletes that I knew and some I did not. This book would be inspirational to kids who have situations to deal with in their lives that might be roadblocks to their success. The old adage of practice makes perfect is definitely demonstrated in this book. The illustrations are not photographs, but cute, cartoonish pictures that help to add some humour to the story. This would be a great addition to a school library.

[heatherms · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a great book to introduce kids to some of sports greatest athletes. It gives us a glimpse into their lives as children and also lets us know about their achievements. Each chapter is fairly short and easy to read... so will definitely keep the interest of children without boring them.***I received this book through LibraryThing Member Giveaway. The opinion is soley my own.****

[sszkutak_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Kid Athletes is a fun book about various athletes during their childhoods. The tales about about 10 pages long for each athlete and tell a story that helped get them to the place they are today - as well known, successful athletes. Some of the athletes included are Danica Patrick, Mohammad Ali, Bruce Li, Gabby Douglas etc. There are a wide range of sports included, both males and females, and older as well as more recent athletes. So the book did a great job hitting the spectrum.

I enjoyed reading about these people and it is always refreshing to know that they led very normal lives at one point. I think young readers will enjoy the stories too. There are a lot of fun facts about the various athletes and any kid that enjoys sports will get a few good laughs.

Overall, I found this book very well done. It was entertaining and enjoyable and I think a young reader would like it. I plan on passing my copy along to my younger brothers who are very into sports facts, but I think a young girl would be just as amused.

[libstaff2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A collection of sports heroes as kids that's perfect for middle grades students. The athletes highlighted are both male and female and from different backgrounds, sports, and decades. I love the Leo Messi and Gabby Douglas stories. Interesting tidbits for young and old sports fans. This author also has a book about U.S. presidents as kids. Net Galley Feedback

[sweeks1980 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"Kid Athletes: True Tales of Childhood from Sports Legends" by David Stabler and Doogie Horner, the same team that wrote "Kid Presidents," is an engaging and fun look at well-known athletes before they became household names. Like "Kid Presidents," the book focuses on the childhoods of athletes and is filled with amusing trivia and anecdotes that make these sports stars relatable and real, particularly for the book's target audience of young readers.Stabler and Horner incorporate a wide range of athletes from various sports. These include current stars like Peyton Manning and Gabby Douglas as well as legendary athletes like Babe Ruth, Billie Jean King, and Jackie Robinson. I particularly appreciated that sports that don't necessarily get a lot of attention in the U.S. media, like sumo wrestling, were represented. Each athlete gets his or her own entry that offers some insight into his or her life as a child, with many focusing on overcoming obstacles like bullying (Douglas and Danica Patrick), bias (Robinson and King), and physical challenges (Jesse Kuhaulua, Lionel Messi, and Yao Ming). Related to this, the book also puts an emphasis on the importance of hard work, practice, and persistence. These concentrations make a great deal of sense given the topic and the intended readership. Fortunately, Stabler’s text is lively and appealing enough to keep the stories from getting overly didactic, and Horner keeps the tone light with his colorful and often humorous illustrations. For instance, in the picture depicting Babe Ruth’s grim experience at a boarding school for delinquent boys, Stabler combats the bleakness by including a cheerful-looking mouse in the picture with a sad-looking Ruth.While I don’t know the backgrounds of the included sports stars well enough to comment on the accuracy of the information, it is clear that Stabler and Horner did their homework when preparing this book. In addition to the bibliography, which they used when writing the book and offer as further reading, small touches, such as a picture showing Liang Chow calling Gabby Douglas a flying squirrel (a nickname that is now associated with Douglas), show an affection and knowledge of the subjects as well as a willingness to go beneath the surface.All in all, “Kid Athletes” is a worthy follow-up to “Kid Presidents and a great book for young readers. It would be a wonderful addition to a home, school, or classroom library, and given its subject matter, I can see it being helpful in engaging reluctant readers or in acting as an entry point for discussing important character traits such as grit.

[mzonderm · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Although a little too inspirational for my tastes, these vignettes about the childhoods of famous athletes are also interesting stories about the families and educations of the athletes. Young sports fans will enjoy learning more about their heroes, and the short format of each story will also appeal to reluctant readers.

[jackiewark · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

We think of these amazing athletes as super-human adults, but when they were toddlers, children, or teenagers, they all experienced some difficulties reaching the pinnacle of their sport. Whether it was poverty, broken bones, disabilities or another issue, they achieved success through shear determination and and a strong work-ethic. All types of sports are highlighted, and it's a sure bet that the kid athletes of today will enjoy reading about these superstars. Chronicled in this collective biography are:Babe Ruth: BaseballJackie Robinson: BaseballBillie Jean King: TennisPeyton Manning: FootballDanica Patrick: Auto RacingBobby Orr: HockeyMichael Jordan: BasketballTiger Woods: GolfYao Ming: BasketballGabrielle Douglas: GymnasticsBabe Didrikson Zaharias: GolfBruce Lee: Martial ArtsMuhammad Ali: BoxingJesse Kuhaulus: Sumo WrestlingJulie Krone: JockeyLionel Messi: SoccerThank you to Quirk Books, David Stabler, Doogie Horner, and LibraryThing Early Reviewers for this ARC.

[singerji · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a great collection of sports stories that explain the hardships of growing to be a star. Most of the stories are well-written and engaging, though some of the pictures included are a little silly or exaggerated. It emphasizes the hard work and sacrifice that athletes put in, but in such short summarizes it's hard to get a good sense of that. Good for an audience of 9-11 years, both boys and girls.

[smcgurr · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This review was written by my 10-year-old daughter: I like this book because it has all different people, and there short biographies. It's more than 100 pages, so I can read it for school. It says how they got into the sports and other things about their childhood, like where they grew up and about their family. I learned a lot about all different athletes. My favorite in the book is Babe Ruth. This is a good book for kids.Dad added: My daughter enjoyed the Kid Presidents book also. Between the brief biographies and illustrations, these books are great for the primary school student.