(4) 4-6 Checkerboard Library: Movie Makers series. Each bio-critical profile focuses on the director's success on one film or franchise. Complemented by photos and sidebars, the narratives intermix details regarding the subjects' personal lives and their professional careers. While the adulatory biographies read like rave reviews themselves, they do provide an excerpt from both a positive and a negative review of the film. Timeline. Glos., ind. Review covers the following Checkerboard Library: Movie Makers titles: George Lucas, J. J. Abrams, Jennifer Lee, Peter Jackson, Steven Spielberg, and John Lasseter.

Reviewer: Jack Forman

(4) 4-6 Innovators series. These volumes focus on contemporary inventors of items or technologies of interest to young people. Biographical sketches accompany information about the inventions, their popularity or uses, and business aspects of the inventors' work. The photographs are often tangential; Tajiri includes no photos of the man himself, and in Kwolek a stock photo of Polish immigrants stands in for her parents. Reading list, websites. Glos., ind. Review covers these Innovators titles: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, Jawed Karim, Satoshi Tajiri, Stephanie Kwolek, and John Lasseter.

Reviewer: Cyrisse Jaffee