David Stabler > Quotes

“Ulysses S. Grant became president of the United States in 1869, and he made a priority of expanding the White House stables. During his eight years in office, he sheltered more horses than any other U.S. president. Because he never liked being driven around by a chauffeur, Grant often saddled one of his horses for a solo ride through the streets of Washington, D.C. One day, as he galloped his way down M Street, a police officer pulled him over for speeding! When the officer discovered that the law-breaker was the leader of the country, he was embarrassed. But Grant wasn’t the least bit upset. “I was speeding; you caught me,” he said. So the police officer issued him a $5 ticket, and America’s eighteenth president walked back to the White House on foot.”
― David Stabler, Kid Legends: True Tales of Childhood from the Books Kid Artists, Kid Athletes, Kid Presidents, and Kid Authors

“BARACK OBAMA’s first job was scooping ice cream at Baskin Robbins. He has hated ice cream ever since.”
― David Stabler, Kid Legends: True Tales of Childhood from the Books Kid Artists, Kid Athletes, Kid Presidents, and Kid Authors

“He saw El Lagartijo—“The Lizard”—one of the most famous bullfighters in Spain, and he met Cara Ancha, the celebrated Andalusian matador. When he was only nine years old, Pablo completed his first painting, Le Picador, a portrait of a man riding a horse in the bullring. Two years later, Pablo’s family moved to a new town, La Coruña, on Spain’s Atlantic coast. Don José got a job as an art teacher at the local college. Even though he was much younger than the other students, Pablo enrolled in his father’s class. He also took courses in figure drawing and landscape painting. By the time he turned thirteen, Pablo’s skill level had surpassed his father’s. Don José was so impressed that he handed his son his brushes and vowed never to paint again. When Pablo was fourteen years old, his family moved again, this time to Barcelona, where Pablo enrolled in the prestigious School of Fine Arts. His teachers quickly noticed his skills and allowed him to skip two grades. But just as in Málaga, Pablo had trouble adhering to the school’s rules. Before long he was back to his old tricks, cutting class so that he could wander the city streets, sketching interesting scenes that he observed along the way. Pablo repeated this behavior at his next school, the Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid. This time, Pablo’s father refused to tolerate his son’s antics and stopped his allowance. At age sixteen, Pablo found himself on his own for the first time, forced to support himself on nothing but his artistic ability. It has been said that the older Pablo grew, the more childlike his art became. During some periods he painted almost entirely in blue or depicted only circus performers.”
― David Stabler, Kid Legends: True Tales of Childhood from the Books Kid Artists, Kid Athletes, Kid Presidents, and Kid Authors

“Don José was so impressed that he handed his son his brushes and vowed never to paint again.”
― David Stabler, Kid Legends: True Tales of Childhood from the Books Kid Artists, Kid Athletes, Kid Presidents, and Kid Authors

“Jeff”
― David Stabler, Kid Authors: True Tales of Childhood from Famous Writers

“Ulysses S.
Grant BORN 1822”
― David Stabler, Kid Legends: True Tales of Childhood from the Books Kid Artists, Kid Athletes, Kid Presidents, and Kid Authors

“United”
― David Stabler, Who Was Jimmy Carter?

“Reagan”
― David Stabler, Who Was Jimmy Carter?

“BARACK OBAMA’s first job was scooping ice cream at Baskin Robbins.”
― David Stabler, Kid Legends: True Tales of Childhood from the Books Kid Artists, Kid Athletes, Kid Presidents, and Kid Authors

“Inside was what people believed to be the oldest toilet in Britain.”
― David Stabler, Kid Authors: True Tales of Childhood from Famous Writers

“sunup”
― David Stabler, Kid Presidents: True Tales of Childhood from America's Presidents

“Want to learn more about your favorite authors? Check out Kid Authors”
― David Stabler, Kid Legends: True Tales of Childhood from the Books Kid Artists, Kid Athletes, Kid Presidents, and Kid Authors

“Sometimes the best ideas come in a flash, like magic.”
― David Stabler, Kid Legends: True Tales of Childhood from the Books Kid Artists, Kid Athletes, Kid Presidents, and Kid Authors

“States.”
― David Stabler, Kid Legends: True Tales of Childhood from the Books Kid Artists, Kid Athletes, Kid Presidents, and Kid Authors

“eight different cities before he was sixteen years old. Georgia O’Keeffe lived in the shadow of her “perfect” older brother Francis. And Jean-Michel Basquiat triumphed over poverty to become one of the world’s most influential artists. Kid Artists tells their stories and more with full-color cartoon illustrations on nearly every page. Other subjects include Claude Monet, Jacob Lawrence, Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Beatrix Potter, Yoko Ono, Dr. Seuss, Emily Carr, Keith Haring, Charles Schulz, and Louise Nevelson.”
― David Stabler, Kid Legends: True Tales of Childhood from the Books Kid Artists, Kid Athletes, Kid Presidents, and Kid Authors

“The Wind in the Willows”
― David Stabler, Kid Legends: True Tales of Childhood from the Books Kid Artists, Kid Athletes, Kid Presidents, and Kid Authors

“1953,”
― David Stabler, Who Was Jimmy Carter?

“Lizard”
― David Stabler, Kid Legends: True Tales of Childhood from the Books Kid Artists, Kid Athletes, Kid Presidents, and Kid Authors

“Every child is an artist,”
― David Stabler, Kid Legends: True Tales of Childhood from the Books Kid Artists, Kid Athletes, Kid Presidents, and Kid Authors

“Pablo Picasso entered the world howling. Seconds after he was born, one of the hospital physicians, his uncle Don Salvador, leaned down and blew a huge cloud of cigar smoke in the newborn’s face. The baby grimaced and bellowed in protest—and that’s how everyone knew he was healthy and alive. At that time, doctors were allowed to smoke in delivery rooms, but this little infant would have none of it. Even at birth, he refused to accept things as they had always been done. The baby was named Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso—whew! He was known to his friends as Pablito, a nickname meaning “little Pablo,” and he learned to draw before he could walk. His first word was piz, short for lápiz, the Spanish word for pencil. It was an instrument that would soon become his most prized possession. Pablo inherited his love of art from his father, Don José Ruiz y Blasco, a talented painter. Don José’s favorite subjects were the pigeons that flocked in the plaza outside the Picassos’ home in Málaga, a town on the southern coast of Spain. Sometimes he would allow Pablo to finish paintings for him. One of Pablo’s earliest solo artworks was a portrait of his little sister, which he painted with egg yolk. But painting was not yet his specialty. Drawing was. Pablo mostly liked to draw spirals. When people asked him why, he explained that they reminded him of churros, the fried-dough pastries sold at every streetcorner stand in Málaga. While other kids played underneath trees in the Plaza de la Merced, Pablo stood by himself scratching circles in the dirt with a stick.”
― David Stabler, Kid Legends: True Tales of Childhood from the Books Kid Artists, Kid Athletes, Kid Presidents, and Kid Authors

“as Miguel the bullfighter. “It’s deep in the Manning vault, I can assure you.”
― David Stabler, Kid Legends: True Tales of Childhood from the Books Kid Artists, Kid Athletes, Kid Presidents, and Kid Authors

“Gergoe”
― David Stabler, Kid Scientists: True Tales of Childhood from Science Superstars

“Ulysses Grant never lost his special bond with horses. When he was seventeen years old, he enrolled at the United States Military Academy at West Point. While there he set a school high-jump record that stood for twenty-five years. “It was as good as a circus to see Grant ride,” one of his fellow cadets recalled. As a grown-up, Grant served in the Union army during the American Civil War and eventually rose to the rank of general. Despite the bloody and violent war raging around him, Grant would tolerate no cruelty toward animals. Once when he witnessed a man beating a horse, he ordered the man tied to a tree “for six hours as punishment for his brutality.”
― David Stabler, Kid Legends: True Tales of Childhood from the Books Kid Artists, Kid Athletes, Kid Presidents, and Kid Authors

“He”
― David Stabler, Kid Legends: True Tales of Childhood from the Books Kid Artists, Kid Athletes, Kid Presidents, and Kid Authors

“pony”
― David Stabler, Kid Presidents: True Tales of Childhood from America's Presidents

“At school, Pablo found it hard to concentrate. Rather than completing classwork, he filled the margins of his notebook with pencil sketches of animals, birds, and people. His teacher grew exasperated with his lack of attention. She wrote a note to his mother saying: “Pablo should stop drawing in class and pay attention to his lessons.” It was clear that Pablo hated rules, and he took every opportunity to disobey them. When adults told him what to do, he did the opposite. He once got in trouble for coloring the sky a bright red instead of the “normal” blue. Pablo was often banished to the “calaboose,” a bare cell with white walls and a bench, which served as a holding pen for unruly students. “I liked it there, because I took along a sketch pad and drew incessantly,” Pablo later said. “I could have stayed there forever drawing without stopping.” He even began misbehaving on purpose so that he would be sentenced to detention and sent to the calaboose. The one person who understood that Pablo wasn’t acting out for no reason was his father. One day when Pablo’s mother caught him drawing on the wall with a nail, Don José took him to the beach to blow off steam. As Don José stretched out to take a nap, Pablo sat beside him and drew a dolphin in the wet sand. When Don José awoke, he was astonished by the beauty of his son’s drawing. “Could it be Pablo who drew this?” he wondered. That afternoon, Don José took a closer look at the image Pablo had drawn on their living room wall. What at first looked like random scratches soon took shape. Don José recognized a reindeer and a bison running away from a group of men on horseback who were armed with bows and arrows. At that moment, Don José knew what to do to get Pablo to stop misbehaving. He decided to take him into his studio and teach his son how to paint. From that day onward, Pablo and his father were inseparable art partners. In search of new subjects to portray, they began going to the bullfights. Pablo was mesmerized by the sight of the brave picadors as they charged ferocious bulls. He saw El Lagartijo—“The Lizard”—one of the most famous bullfighters in Spain, and he met Cara Ancha,”
― David Stabler, Kid Legends: True Tales of Childhood from the Books Kid Artists, Kid Athletes, Kid Presidents, and Kid Authors

“Every child is an artist,” Pablo Picasso once observed. “The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”
― David Stabler, Kid Legends: True Tales of Childhood from the Books Kid Artists, Kid Athletes, Kid Presidents, and Kid Authors

“HARRY S TRUMAN is one of seventeen presidents who don’t have a middle name.”
― David Stabler, Kid Presidents: True Tales of Childhood from America's Presidents