Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 11/01/2022 Though Barretta sometimes strains to point out parallels between Spielberg’s films and his life (“Wherever he lived, he felt like an outsider, like an alien from another planet,” while at school “bullies circled him like hungry sharks”), this searching account of the great filmmaker’s formative years frequently draws from published interviews. Along with mentioning his early amateur productions, it fills in young cineastes on important technical aspects of the art—from staging and editing to watching both popular movies and audience reactions with analytical eyes. The author also looks at his subject’s religious and family background, both in his childhood and in his adult years, and closes with selective lists of his films (up to 2018’s Ready Player One) divided into age-appropriate sections. The dramatic lighting and vivid colors in Orback’s illustrations of the young Spielberg in various settings, usually with a camera, and some of his iconic characters are properly cinematic. - Copyright 2022 Booklist.

Booklist - 11/01/2022 Though Barretta sometimes strains to point out parallels between Spielberg’s films and his life (“Wherever he lived, he felt like an outsider, like an alien from another planet,” while at school “bullies circled him like hungry sharks”), this searching account of the great filmmaker’s formative years frequently draws from published interviews. Along with mentioning his early amateur productions, it fills in young cineastes on important technical aspects of the art—from staging and editing to watching both popular movies and audience reactions with analytical eyes. The author also looks at his subject’s religious and family background, both in his childhood and in his adult years, and closes with selective lists of his films (up to 2018’s Ready Player One) divided into age-appropriate sections. The dramatic lighting and vivid colors in Orback’s illustrations of the young Spielberg in various settings, usually with a camera, and some of his iconic characters are properly cinematic. - Copyright 2022 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 01/01/2023 Gr 3–6—Life stories that focus on an individual's childhood are particularly appealing to young readers, and the focus of this picture book biography ensures that it will inspire kids who feel familiarity with Spielberg's early experiences. Enchanted by movie magic from an early age, Spielberg was lucky to be born into a creative family. Realistic, painterly illustrations capture the 1950s era when he was growing up in New Jersey, his fertile imagination beginning to take root through drawing, dressing up, playing pranks, and making music. His camera skills developed after a move to Arizona, though he struggled with anxieties, antisemitism, bullies, poor grades, and tension between his parents, who eventually divorced. The story adeptly links the boy's fears and hardships to his most celebrated movies and focusing on the filmmaker's own conviction that even the most fantastical of his stories is based on his own life. The narrative concludes with Spielberg becoming the youngest director at a major studio at the age of 21; a few facts about his later life are also presented as a sequence of images on an old-fashioned filmstrip. The book includes quotation sources, fun facts, and suggestions for age-appropriate viewing of Spielberg's movies. VERDICT Inspiring text and illustrations evoke the journey of an iconic filmmaker. Recommended for all collections.—Gloria Koster - Copyright 2023 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.