MARCH 2013 - AudioFile
Much like her subject, author Karen Blumenthal doesn't hold back. Her engaging biography for young listeners portrays Steve Jobs in all his brilliance and flaws. Narrator Sean Runnette's smooth, confident tone evokes images of the black-turtleneck and jeans-clad bespectacled genius himself. Runnette's authoritative voice works well with nonfiction, and his matter-of-fact delivery of the direct quotes sprinkled throughout suits Jobs. The combination of Blumenthal's words and Runnette's voice provides students with an honest look at a complicated man whose ideas changed the world. Young listeners may never look at their favorite Apple devices quite the same again. M.D. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
Framing her work around the themes of a lauded commencement speech that “technology rock star” Jobs delivered to Stanford University’s class of 2005, Blumenthal crafts an insightful, balanced portrait of the enigmatic man whose life was cut short by illness in 2011. The book chronicles Jobs’s boyhood passions for technology, simplicity, and design that led to his rocky tenures with the technology company he helped create, was fired from, and returned to and led to the heights of its success. Readers receive a primer in technological advances, including the mathematics of animation, as well as Jobs’s vision for product design and marketing innovation. Blumenthal relates accounts of Jobs’s eccentric hygiene and eating habits, his infamous tantrums and tirades in the workplace, and his harsh treatment of colleagues, loved ones, and friends. However, his charisma often won the day, and commentary from Jobs and his wife, given near the end of his life, help soften the picture. Numerous b&w photographs and sidebars appear, and an author’s note, technology time line, glossary, index, and bibliography give this volume extra polish. Ages 12–up. Agent: Ken Wright, Writers House. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
This is a smart book about a smart subject by a smart writer.” —Booklist, starred review
“Students who know Steve Jobs only through Apple's iTunes, iPhones, and iPads will have their eyes opened by this accessible and well-written biography.” —VOYA
“An engaging and intimate portrait. Few biographies for young readers feel as relevant and current as this one does.” —The Horn Book Magazine
“A perceptive, well-wrought picture of an iconic figure.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Blumenthal crafts an insightful, balanced portrait.” —Publishers Weekly
MARCH 2013 - AudioFile
Much like her subject, author Karen Blumenthal doesn't hold back. Her engaging biography for young listeners portrays Steve Jobs in all his brilliance and flaws. Narrator Sean Runnette's smooth, confident tone evokes images of the black-turtleneck and jeans-clad bespectacled genius himself. Runnette's authoritative voice works well with nonfiction, and his matter-of-fact delivery of the direct quotes sprinkled throughout suits Jobs. The combination of Blumenthal's words and Runnette's voice provides students with an honest look at a complicated man whose ideas changed the world. Young listeners may never look at their favorite Apple devices quite the same again. M.D. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
An admiring though not entirely adulatory view of our era's greatest technology celebrity, rightly dubbed (by U2's Bono) "the hardware software Elvis." Blumenthal weaves her portrait on the thematic frame used by Jobs himself in his autobiographical 2005 Stanford commencement address. She "connects the dots" that led him from his adoption as an infant through his "phone phreaking" days to a spectacular rise and just as meteoric fall from corporate grace in the 1980s. Following a decade of diminished fortunes and largely self-inflicted complications in personal relationships, he returned to Apple for a spectacular second act that also turned out to be his final one. Despite getting bogged down occasionally in detail, the author tells a cohesive tale, infused with dry wit ("He also considered going into politics, but he had never actually voted, which would have been a drawback") The book is thoroughly researched and clear on the subject's foibles as well as his genius. A perceptive, well-wrought picture of an iconic figure well worth admiring--from a distance. (endnotes, photos, time line) (Biography. 11-14)
