Ernest Hemingway had books about him before books he wrote existed.

His mother kept scrapbooks that have just been revealed. Grace Hall Hemingway first began scrapbboks documenting Papa Hemmy's youth by describing the weather when he was born-long below the Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winner was an American icon.

Now, people can see the scrapbooks in an exhibit at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. The content of the scrapbooks has been made available for the first time...and there's a lot of juicy-and adorable-material.

Most of the content was not previously available-only a few researchers had glimpsed it. The leather-bound scrapbboks were protected in a vault for decades to guard against dilapidation and wear.

The Hemingway scrapbook records will be released on his birthday-had he lived to be 114, Hemingway Collection curator Susan Wrynn told press.

Papa's family chimed in, too. "I think it will be a very rich resource for people interested in learning about this period of his life," Sean Hemingway, Hemingway's grandson, told press. "He had tremendous talent. It must have been there from the beginning. So I'm sure there are clues in there to that."

Literary tradition in the family may have started with Hemignway's mom, who made his letters into "almost a story", according to Pennsylvania State University professor Sandra Spanier. She's editing a project that will publish Pappy H's letters in over a dozen volumes.

"She almost made their lives into a story ... and I think that carries over into his life and his fiction," she said.

There's a clear literary tradition evident in the letters. From an early age, a 3-year-old Hemingway was "using long words" and making "sage remarks."

While Hemingway is known, in part, for the simplicity of his language, his vocabulary clearly evolved from an early age. He even had a scribbling he said depicted the sea-accurate for the later writer of the Pulitzer Prize- winning "The Old Man and the Sea".

There's a scribbling from when Hemingway wasn't quite 3 years old that the future war correspondent and novelist - who later won a- told his mother depicted the roaring sea. Other early passages also hinted at the writer Hemingway would become.

And his particular brand of American culture and war were early traits, too-little Earnest collected war cartoons and loved courageous heroes. "He loves stories about Great Americans," she wrote.

The scrapbooks also contain a bevy of photos, paintings, letters, vacation pics, and a note in which Hemingway confessed to bad behavior in church.

"My conduct tomorrow will be good," 13-year-old Hemingway wrote.