Reviews

The Boy Who Thought Outside the Box: The Story of Video Game Inventor Ralph Baer by Marcie Wessels

emilymyhren's review

informative inspiring

4.25

cweichel's review

4.0

I can imagine my two sons devouring this book back in the days when video games were their passion and before they grew up and took on other responsibilities. I bet youngsters today will be fascinated to learn how the games they play today first began. This will be an important resource for students working on research projects. I sure wish it had been around to pique the interest of students I remember who had a hard time coming up with topics that interested them. I appreciated Beatriz Castro’s gorgeous artwork here.

mldavisreads's review

informative

4.0

Picture book biography.  Ralph Baer is a largely unknown name that started an industry many of us are familiar with: video games. Before Pong or Atari, Ralph Baer released the Magnavox Odyssey as the first stand alone video game console.  He actually tried to have it on the television, but the tv producers were not interested.  This book details Ralph's story-- how he spent a lot of time inside as a child due to being Jewish in Germany, how his family fled to the US and he created a leather punch to help them do their piecework from the leather goods factory more efficiently, how he built a radio from scratch while in the army, and went on to become fascinated by TV.  He also created the famous Simon toy.  I liked the story, but I thought it needed more context.  Biographies without a timeline are my new pet peeve (brought to you by the stack I read this week), as it's hard to place "at the age of 21" when no birth year is presented.  I also would have liked a video game timeline, even though I know that wasn't entirely the point of the book.  Overall a good story on a popular topic, may inspire some to do their own additional digging to fill in a few information holes.