Jennifer Poux - Taylor Swift

GROSSET & DUNLAP

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Illustrations by Becky James

Photo credit: cover: Kevin Mazur/WireImage/Getty Images

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Ebook ISBN 9780593383872

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHRISTMAS TREE FARM

S tart with a classic combo: a little girl and a super-sized dream. Add an off-the-charts SCOOP! of songwriting talent and another generous SCOOP! of fierce vocals. Sprinkle on a sparkling smile and brilliant baby blues. Drizzle a coating of that girl-next-door magic. And bam!

But dont for a minute think thats all it takes to reach the megastardom of Taylor Swift. This is not some sugarcoated, kitty-unicorn fairy talewell it is, sort of. But the thing is, Taylor personifies drive, commitment, and hard work. Shes been tenacious since she was a kid living in Pennsylvania with her parents, begging to go to Nashville in search of a record deal.

The SCOOP! DEETS:

FULL NAME: Taylor Alison Swift

BIRTHDAY: December 13, 1989

BIRTHPLACE: West Reading, Pennsylvania

HEIGHT: 511

INSTAGRAM: 134 million followers

HOMES: New York, Nashville, Los Angeles, Rhode Island

CATS: Meredith Grey, Olivia Benson, Benjamin Button

BOYFRIEND: British actor Joe Alwyn

If you read all the fabulous SCOOP! books (but of course you will) youll see a theme: Artists arent born covered in stardust. And they usually dont become household names overnight. Thats just not on the regular. The vast majority of them work at it for a long timelike yearsbefore you ever hear their names and know their faces. And Taylor is no exception. But success did come early to her, and thats in part because she knew exactly what she wanted early on.

Taylor set out at eleven years old to make her dreams reality. She had a plan, and with the unwavering support of her parents, she kicked it into action. By the time she turned thirty, Taylor had sold more than fifty million albums!

But lets back up to the beginning. Because this is a story worth telling. And thats what youre here for.

Taylor Swift was born almost two weeks before Christmas on December 13, 1989. Her parents, Andrea and Scott, gave her a gender-neutral name in case she grew up to work in corporate America, like they did.

My mom thought it was cool that if you got a business card that said Taylor you wouldnt know if it was a guy or a girl, Tay told Rolling Stone magazine. She wanted me to be a business person in a business world.

Heres the SCOOP! Taylors parents also named her for the singer James Taylor.

Taylor spent the first decade of her life on her parents Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania, riding the familys horses almost as soon as she could walk. (Check out the video for her single Christmas Tree Farm for some sweet home movies from that era.) She said it was awesome to have so much space to roam. Its also where she fell in love with the holiday season.

In my heart is a Christmas tree farm

Where the people would come

To dance under sparkling lights

Bundled up in their mittens and coats

And the cider would flow

And I just wanna be there tonight

Her job during Christmas tree season was to pick praying mantis pods off the trees so they wouldnt go home with customers. (See SCOOP! Extra on for more.)

It didnt hurt that her parents had moneythey both worked in financeso life was pretty cushy on the farm. But her parents gave her a gift more important to her future career than money or a nice house: they let her be a dreamer.

I had the most magical childhood, running free and going anywhere I wanted to in my head, she told Rolling Stone.

She grew up very close to her mom and dad, and still is. I know Im so lucky that I got two perfect parents, you know? Taylor told the Washington Post when she was first hitting it big.

Taylor also has a brother, Austin, who came along when she was just over two years old. (Austin is an actor now.) The two blonds grew up on the farm until Taylor was around ten, then the family moved to an even bigger house in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. Taylor was in fifth grade then.

If you had to guess what kind of student Taylor was, what would you say?

If you said perfectionist, youre right. She was all about excellent grades and being a good girl. And that comes up over and over again in Taylors interviews, dating back to when she was a teenager, through adulthood. She was a people pleaser. Sometimes that was a good thing, and it worked in her favorand sometimes it wasnt so great. (More on that later!) Regardless of the pros and cons, it was how she was built.

Taylor was also a romantic with a colorful imagination. She rode horses competitively, but she says being so tall made her awkward and gawky, and she wasnt cut out for team sports. (You gotta think the basketball and volleyball coaches wanted her with that height, right?) Anyway, it wasnt sports that took up space in her brain. It was the stories she wrote. She preferred poetry and singing along to LeAnn Rimes CDs to hoops, which didnt sit well with the other kids in her class.

Even if it wasnt always the cool thing to do, according to her classmates, Taylor stayed true to her interests. In fifth grade she entered a national poetry contest with a poem about a monster in her closetand won! The poem was published in an anthology, and even her class thought that was pretty amazing. (See SCOOP! Extra on for the actual poem.)