Over the years, I’ve found there is a dearth of good reference books on movies about the Coming of Age genre in cinema. The only two books available on the market were Coming of Age Movie and Video Guide: Volume 1 authored by Don Lort, which was released in 1997, and a second volume by the same title, released five years later and authored by Brandon Lacey. These two books have proven to be a great resource of information and have provided me with indispensable guidance when looking up, researching, watching or writing about movies. But that was it. There were no other books on the subject.
So I decided to write one, both to provide a readily available resource for fellow fans of this genre (who may be looking for an updated guide to films they’d like to view) and, secondly, to preserve the many reviews I’ve written over the years here on theskykid.com. I was not alone in this endeavor. Oliver T., a German friend of mine, contributed a significant amount of well-written reviews of Coming of Age movies. I added my own works to bring the total to ninety-four different reviews of some of the best movies in the genre.
And we went further, including exclusive interviews with the most prolific filmmakers of the genre: Franc Vitale (Montreal Main), Lasse Nielsen (You Are Not Alone), Connor Clements (James), Rick Lancaster (The Abduction of Zack Butterfield), Dave Shultz (Jet Boy) and Ivan Noel (In Your Absence). Their insights into the making of films is something we wanted to share with fans of the genre. The end result of the three-year process is the book Coming Of Age Movies: Growing Up On Screen, which was published in the last days of August 2011.
Too many people for me to name are in need of thanks regarding the creation of this book. But I do want to single out two, without whose contributions the book would not have been possible. First, my co-author Oliver, who graciously granted the publishing rights of his best works. And my editor, Gary McShane, who oversees everything that is published on this site and who stood by me during all these years that it took to get this book ready for publication. I’ll add a special thanks to the filmmakers and actors who agreed to be interviewed and to Michael from CVMC.net who provided some great films for me to review.
So today I’m very pleased to tell you that the book is available on Crate Space and Amazon.com!