Andrew Jenks

December 15, 2012
A well-told tale of a young filmmaker's progress. This autobiography--here as in all things, the 26-year-old Jenks is a fast starter--is a steady and revealing window into Jenks' life. With considerable brio, he not only charts his filmmaking precociousness, but tenders what are often aching glimpses into his personality. These range from his challenging youth (as for puberty, "I hadn't become a man but a huge baby") to his present-day whirl of activity. And it is a wonderful thing to witness Jenks letting the ants in his pants get to work. In high school, he was already getting into hot water with his short documentaries for the local free TV station (the pizza guys didn't like him dissing their product). He moved on to highly imaginative works that included a tender portrait of an assisted-living home (when he was 19) and nine months in the life of maverick baseball coach Bobby Valentine (in Japan). From there, he went to an MTV show that documents everything from a homeless youth to horse slaughter farms in Miami, with the emphasis on his determination to connect kids with the issues. None of this was a gimme; Jenks worked like a dog for it all, though obviously with more than a spoonful of native talent. One happy and spirited object lesson in what tenacity can bring. (Nonfiction. 10 & up)

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March 1, 2013

Gr 8 Up-Jenks began making films as a middle schooler, was a misfit and eventual dropout at NYU, and worked hard to make a name for himself. At 19, he decided to move into an assisted-living facility for a few months and make a documentary about it. It screened successfully at film festivals, and HBO bought it. Jenks then became interested in Bobby Valentine's story and moved to Japan to document the legendary baseball manager's life as an ex-pat. Next came a show on MTV, World of Jenks, in which he immersed himself in the lives of people on the fringes of society-an autistic man, a homeless girl-for weeks at a time. Ostensibly a memoir, the book reads like a cross between a professional portfolio and a series of mass email updates from a 20-year-old. Between lists of famous people he's shaken hands with (once Tom Cruise retweeted him!), accounts of his meals ("I'm twenty-three, toasting top government officials and eating Kobe beef, the best in the world"), and endless brags about his own perseverance and abilities (he describes himself and his friends as "everything [Bobby Valentine] loved about the world"), Jenks conveys surprisingly little information, missing opportunities to teach aspiring documentarians anything about the filmmaking process. Pictures of Jenks making funny faces, with captions such as "Bottom right: No idea what I'm doing," saturate the book with unnecessary images and add little substance. Try Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan's Andy Warhol, Prince of Pop (Delacorte, 2004) for a more meaningful biography of a pop-culture artist.-Allison Bruce, Bank Street Library, New York City

Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2012
Grades 7-10 Jenks, a successful, 26-year-old maker of documentary films, presents a slick but lively account of how he blew off film school, ignored naysayers, and transformed his lifelong dream into a career that so far includes two lauded feature-length movies and an MTV series (currently in its second season). Rather than focusing on the technical details of production, he takes a wider angle, interspersing engaging anecdotes about filming his various subjects (who have ranged from a teen living with autism and the residents of an old-age home to baseball manager Bobby Valentine) with personal comments. Also, while he does tuck in superficial platitudes, such as Fake it until you make it, he highlights personal qualities that will get anyone on their way, such as being bold, learning how to listen, and never taking no for an answer. Formatted in easily digestible paragraphs with both frequent changes of type color and size and a generous admixture of snapshots and stills, this success story offers encouragement to a wide audience.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)