Edgers - Who Were the Beatles?

Who Were the Beatles? — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Who Were the Beatles?" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

1234567...10

Table of Contents

For my two favorite ladies, Carlene and Lila...
All together now G.E.

For Nicole, my biggest
critic and biggest inspiration J.T.

GROSSET & DUNLAP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124,
Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,
New Delhi 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310,
New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pry) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank,
Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any
other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please
purchase only electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of
copyrighted materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated.

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

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)
Inc. S.A.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2005014000

eISBN : 978-1-101-07827-3

http://us.penguingroup.com

Who Were the Beatles?

They were known as the Fab Four. And they were so famous that if you just said John, Paul, George, and Ringo, people knew who you were talking about.

They looked different from most young guys in the early 1960s. They wore their hair longer. Reporters called them the Mop Tops. Their jackets, which buttoned all the way to the top. Their accents were different, too, because they were from England. Liverpool, England. Before that, all the biggest pop stars were American.

Most of all, their music sounded different. It was rock and roll, but not like anything kids had heard before. When the band came to the United States for the first time, concert stadiums sold out. People went wild. Girls fainted. Newspapers called it the British Invasion.

They were even bigger than Elvis. Then, when they were at their most popular, the Fab Four broke up. Yet today, forty years later, their songs still hit the top of the charts.

Who was this band? The Beatles, the greatest rock group ever. Here is their story.

Chapter 1

John Lennon

There was nothing quiet about John Lennon, not even the day he was born. It was October 9, 1940. World War II was raging in Europe. Liverpool, England, was being bombed by the Germans. But baby John couldnt wait. His mother, Julia, went to the hospital and gave birth at seven in the morning. As he arrived, the walls of the hospital shook from falling bombs.

Even before the war, Liverpool was a gloomy place to live. Once a thriving seaport, the rain-soaked city had become run-down. Many factories were closing and those that remained open didnt have enough jobs. Poor families were crammed into small apartments in the slums of town.

At first, John lived with his mother and grandparents. Johns father, Alfred, was never around. He worked on a ship and was gone for months on end. As hard as she tried, Johns mother couldnt make enough money to support her baby son. For a little over a year, Alfred sent checks home. Then the checks stopped, and Alfred stopped writing. Julia couldnt even afford to get John his own bed. He ended up sleeping in hers.

Things grew worse; Johns family began to fight over where he should live. Julia wanted him to stay with her. He was her son. But she had trouble taking care of him. Johns aunt Mimi also wanted the boy. She said that John would be better off with her. Mimi lived in a big house in a better part of town. Johns father tried to take him, too. One weekend, John went to visit his father, whose boat had docked in Liverpool. Alfred asked the boy, only five years old, if he wanted to go on an adventure. They would travel together to a faraway country called New Zealand. Sure, John said. It sounded like fun.

Then Julia found out what Alfred was planning. She told him to stay away. But much as she wanted John, Julia saw that her son needed a better home. In the end, she decided to send him to Mimi.

Despite all of this, John was a happy boy. Pictures from those days show him with a big smile on his face, whether he was riding his bike or standing with the family dog, Sally. Mimi gave him lots of books. Along with reading, John liked to make monsters and skeletons out of paper, and paste them over his bed.

Because John was so young, he didnt really know that it was unusual to live with his aunt and have his mother visit. Besides, Julia acted more like a buddy than a mother. She loved to tell jokes, make funny faces, and sing. She taught John how to play the banjo, an instrument similar to a guitar. From Julia, John heard stories about his banjo-playing grandfather, who had moved to the United States. It was Johns mother who gave him his first guitar. She also taught him how to play it.

Aunt Mimi had lots of rules. She expected John to come home after school to do homework. She wanted him to go to bed early. She often had good reason to get mad at John. As he got older, John got into more trouble. He was smart, but he didnt work hard. He did well only in art class. John spent most of his time making little books of poems and drawings. He also got into fights with other kids. And he sometimes made fun of his teachers, even when they were right there in the room.

Next page

1234567...10

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Who Were the Beatles?»

Look at similar books to Who Were the Beatles?. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.

The Beatles

The Beatles Piano Solos (Songbook)

The Beatles

The Beatles Lyrics

Geoff Edgers

Who Is Stan Lee?

The Beatles

The Beatles for Classical Piano

Edgers

Who Was Julia Child?

Beatles

The Beatles: the BBC Archives: 1962-1970

Beatles.

Tell me why: the Beatles: album by album, song by song, the sixties and after

Beatles.

If you like the Beatles: here are over 200 bands, films, records and other oddities that you will love

Beatles (CRT)

Beatles Session Parts

Geoff Edgers

Who Was Elvis Presley?

Je remy Tugeau

Who were the beatles?

The Beatles

The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook

Discussion, reviews of the book Who Were the Beatles? and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.