About the Founder

David Aretha, editor and publisher of Owl Street Press, has written nearly 100 books for young readers and edited hundreds of books in many genres. Visit his website at www.davidaretha.com. David's book The Murder of Emmett Till was assigned reading for New York University Journalism students due to its exemplary journalistic prose. David has edited the writings of such notable Americans as Margaret Truman, John Eisenhower, Walter Cronkite, Tom Hayden, and Congressman John Lewis, and he has edited materials for The Barack Obama Foundation, The Kennedy Center, and the Jane Goodall Institute. 

David founded Owl Street Press in 2023 to launch the new series When They Were Kids. In the biographies he has read, written, and edited, he has always been fascinated with the subject's childhood. In the early-years chapters, we often discover the secrets of how they became extraordinarily successful later in life. In his biography on baseball superstar Alex Rodriguez, for example, we learn how devastated young Alex was when his father abandoned the family. For days, Alex would wait outside every evening hoping against hope that his father would return. Alex later focused his energy and passion on baseball, the sport he and his dad had once shared together.

David hopes that young readers will be fascinated and inspired by biographies in the series When We Were Kids.

​