Kirsten Anderson - Who Was Robert Ripley?

Who Was
Robert Ripley?

By Kirsten Anderson
Illustrated by Tim Foley

Grosset & Dunlap
An Imprint of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

To my little dog, Sunflower, who is more incredible than anything Ripley found... Believe It or Not!KA

GROSSET & DUNLAP

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

penguin.com

A Penguin Random House Company

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Text copyright 2015 by Kirsten Anderson. Illustrations copyright 2015 by Tim Foley. Cover illustration copyright 2015 by Nancy Harrison. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-0-698-19887-6

Version_1

Who Was Robert Ripley?

By December 1918, Robert Ripley had been drawing sports illustrations for almost ten years. He was used to drawing boxing matches, baseball games, and pro golfers. But now he was stuck. He was in a big hurry to leave the newspaper office.

He had a date. But he couldnt leave until he had the sports cartoon finished.

Ripley loved to collect weird and interesting facts. He kept a folder of them on his desk for a rainy day, when he was out of cartoon ideas. Today felt like that day. He began to look through the folder...

A little while later, Ripley finished his drawing. It showed people accomplishing amazing things. A man who walked backward across a continent. Another who hopped one hundred yards in eleven seconds. A fellow who jumped rope 11,810 times in a row, and one who ran backward for one hundred yards in only fourteen seconds. There were some track and field facts, record-breaking times spent underwater, and three-legged racers. These were the fascinating things people did to which Ripley paid attention.

Ripley needed a title. He had drawn pictures of people who were incredible athletes and others who did downright silly things. He scrawled Champs and Chumps across the page, then signed the drawing Ripley, as usual. He didnt think it was a great idea, but it was better than nothing. Ripley wasnt sure what his editor would think of the cartoon. He handed in the sheet of paper, put on his coat, and rushed out the door. He didnt want to be late for his date.

Champs and Chumps would become a popular illustrated feature of the New York Globe after Ripley drew more and more of the weird and wonderful cartoons. The title was later changed to the catchier Believe It or Not! Readers began to notice and asked for more. In ten years, Bob Ripleys cartoons would be seen in newspapers all over the United States, and he would go on to become a world traveler and a best-selling author. In twenty years, he would be a well-known movie and radio star.

This is his story... Believe It or Not!

Chapter 1
Santa Rosa

LeRoy Robert Ripley was born on February 22, 1890, in Santa Rosa, California. Three years later, his parents, Isaac and Lillie, had a daughter, Ethel. Isaac was a carpenter. He built the familys house. Lillie did laundry for extra money. His parents always called LeRoy Roy.

Roy was thin. He had freckles, and his ears stuck out. His front teeth were crooked and poked out of his mouth. They made it hard for him to speak clearly. Roy was always embarrassed by his teeth.

The Ripleys were poor, so Roys mother made his clothes out of laundry that her customers had left behind. The kids at school teased him about his clothes and his teeth. His teachers werent too happy with him, either. He drew pictures during class when he was supposed to be paying attention to his lessons.

Roy drew constantly. The family didnt have money for extra paper, so he used any scraps he could find. He drew his mother and sister, and sometimes himself. He copied pictures he saw. He did anything he could to become a better artist. By high school he had developed another talent. He became a star pitcher on the school baseball team.

In 1905, Isaac Ripley died. Lillie now had to take care of fifteen-year-old Roy, Ethel, and baby Douglas. Lillie pushed Roy to get a job to help out the family.

Roy tried delivering newspapers, but he hated getting up early. He soon quit. His decision to quit his first job may have saved his life. When a massive earthquake struck San Francisco in 1906, Santa Rosaonly about fifty miles from San Franciscosuffered serious damage. At least a hundred people died there, including some of the newsboys waiting outside the Santa Rosa newspaper office to pick up their early morning papers.

THE 1906 SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE

A1T 5:12 A.M. ON THE MORNING OF APRIL 18, 1906, THE GROUND BENEATH THE CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO BEGAN TO TREMBLE. WITHIN TWENTY SECONDS, A FULL-FLEDGED EARTHQUAKE WAS UNDERWAY. THE RUPTURE IN THE LAND ALONG THE SAN ANDREAS FAULT RAN 296 MILES. THE RUMBLING LASTED ONLY ABOUT FORTY-FIVE TO SIXTY SECONDS. IN SAN FRANCISCO, THE EARTHQUAKE NOT ONLY CAUSED BUILDINGS TO COLLAPSE BUT ALSO BROKE GAS LINES THAT SPARKED FIRES. WITH WATER MAINS BROKEN AS WELL, IT WAS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO PUT OUT THE FIRES. THEY RAGED FOR FOUR DAYS. ABOUT THREE THOUSAND PEOPLE WERE PROBABLY KILLED BY THE EARTHQUAKE, AND HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS LOST THEIR HOMES. THE SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE IS STILL CONSIDERED ONE OF THE WORST NATURAL DISASTERS TO EVER STRIKE THE UNITED STATES.