In this handsome hybrid of fact and fiction, an imaginary journalist for the imaginary Modern Times covers the ship over five years from big idea to watery grave, his firsthand account of the final hours recovered from his body at sea. Designed as a splashy special magazine edition is Titanic Sinks! by Barry Denenberg (Viking 72 pages $17.00 ages 9-up). The Titanic had rowing machines in the gym! A lot of good that did, according to three books about the great sea disaster that 100 years later continues to rivet us. A longtime journalist for the Wall Street Journal, she employs meticulous research and well-tailored storytelling to capture a unique personal quest as well as a profound technological and cultural revolution.

What emerges is a complex of dichotomies: rejection and acceptance loose ends and profound connections interests in art and science, philosophy and business testy relationships and intense collaboration public failure followed by wild success.Īdults with too little time for Walter Isaacson's 2011 biography of Jobs might be well satisfied with Blumenthal's effort for young adults. Many references to a speech Jobs made at Stanford University in 2005 provide a thematic layer. The particulars are all in place - adoption, devoted but long-suffering parents, dropping out of college, garage lab with Steve Wozniak, sometimes messy personal life, Buddhism, early Apple history, wanderings, Pixar, iPods, iPhones, iPads, and finally disease and death. They can draw on half a dozen acceptable middle-grade biographies, but, in a few years, these very same third-graders will be ready for something better - the beautifully crafted Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different: A Biography, by Karen Blumenthal (Feiwal & Friends 312 pages $16.99 ages 12-up). He is the iconic innovator of their time, and they already know it.

When asked to read about an important inventor, some third-graders I know went right for Steve Jobs.

Steve jobs by karen blumenthal