Jerry Changed the Game!: How Engineer Jerry Lawson Revolutionized Video Games Forever

by Don Tate (Author) Cherise Harris (Illustrator)

Reading Level: 4th − 5th Grade

Meet Jerry Lawson, the Black engineer who revolutionized the video game industry, in this engaging picture book biography perfect for fans of Whoosh!: Lonnie Johnson's Super-Soaking Stream of Inventions and Little Legends: Exceptional Men in Black History.

Before Xbox, PlayStation, or Nintendo Switch, there was a tinkerer named Jerry Lawson. As a boy, Jerry loved playing with springs, sprockets, and gadget-y things. When he grew up, Jerry became an engineer--a professional tinkerer--and in the 1970s, he turned his technical know-how to video games. Back then, if players wanted a new video game, they had to buy an entire new console, making gaming very expensive. Jerry was determined to fix this problem, and despite roadblocks along the way and having to repeat a level or two, it was never game over for his mission. Eventually, he leveled up and built a brand-new kind of video game console: one that allowed players to switch out cartridges!

He also founded Video Soft, Inc., the first African American-owned video game company in the country. Jerry's tinkering and inventions changed the video gaming world forever. Today, gamers have access to hundreds of video games at the push of a button, all thanks to him. Game on!

Select format:
Hardcover
$19.99

Kirkus

Enticing and inspiring fare.  
Don Tate
Don Tate is an award-winning author and the illustrator of numerous critically acclaimed books for children, as well as a founding host of The Brown Bookshelf. His accolades include two Ezra Jack Keats Awards and an honor, the Carter G. Woodson Book Award, a Christopher Award, a Lee & Low New Voices Honor, and a Texas Bluebonnet Award Master List selection, among many others. A native of Des Moines, Iowa, Tate currently resides in Austin, Texas, with his wife and son.
Classification
Non-fiction
ISBN-13
9781665919081
Lexile Measure
-
Guided Reading Level
-
Publisher
Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books
Publication date
August 29, 2023
Series
-
BISAC categories
JUV000000 - Juvenile Fiction | General
Library of Congress categories
History
United States
Electrical engineers
Video games
Video game designers
Lawson, Jerry
African American engineers

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