Famous Friends: Best Buds, Rocky Relationships, and Awesomely Odd Couples from Past to Present - Softcover

Jennifer Castle is the author of the YA novels You Look Different in Real Life, The Beginning of After, and What Happens Now (June 2016), as well as the novella Playing Kiera. The Beginning of After was an ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults selection, a Chicago Public Library's 2012 "Best of the Best" Book for teens list, and a 2011 ABC New Voices selection.
Jennifer is also the creator and executive producer of "It's My Life," an award-winning PBS KIDS website for children aged 8 to 13. As a writer and producer of content for kids and teens, Jennifer has worked on projects for Steven Spielberg’s Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, McGraw-Hill Publishing, and WNET-13. She has served on an educational technology proposal review panel for the National Science Foundation and on the PBS Teachersource Advisory Group.
Bill Spring is a graduate of the S.I. Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University. He has been a professional writer in New York and Los Angeles for over 20 years, including eleven years as Senior Editor and Community Manager for "It's My Life," the PBS Kids website for tweens. As a punch-up screenwriter for Hollywood studios and production companies, Bill has worked on such projects as The Berenstain Bears, Simon Bloom: Gravity Keeper, Aliens in the Attic, Mama's Boy, and Seal Team Seven.

Gr 3–6—This collection of brief celebrity profiles approaches its famous subjects through their notable friendships with other prominent figures. Large, bright photos and sidebars introduce students to pairs such as Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace as well as Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe. Everything from politics and science to sports and theater is covered. The authors devote six pages to each duo, exploring them as units as well as individually. The text doesn't shy away from detailing friendship breakups, such as in the case of Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini. VERDICT Likely to be a hit with students interested in browsable biographies.—Debbie Tanner, S. D. Spady Montessori Elementary, FL