Andrew Jenks: My Adventures as a Young Filmmaker

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