Language: G; Mature Content: G; Violence: G.
BUYING ADVISORY: EL – OPTIONAL
AUDIENCE APPEAL: HIGH
The story starts with three students in Finland who won a contest in 2003 for the best mobile game and formed a company called Rovio. Six years later, a designer at Rovio created the angry bird characters, and the first version of Angry Birds was launched. After a slow start, the game took off when they got an ad about the game on Apple’s main page, and let players try it for free.
The text outlines the main events in the birth and growth of Angry Birds and its products in one to two straight-forward paragraphs and one picture and caption per page. You will also find a glossary, though no bold words in the text, a Learn More section, and index. Every chapter has a short “Meet…” sidebar about a person involved in the story. It even mentions the additive nature of this and other video games. However, it provides very few facts about the people. For example, two of the five sidebars don’t even show the person you are meeting, and no mention is made of the relationship between founder Niklas Hed and CEO Mikael Hed (they’re cousins). Finally, the text includes some exaggerated opinions, like “No one was immune to the game’s charm.” I, for one, was, but this book did help me appreciate the Angry Birds phenomenon a little more. If you have fans at your school, this will be popular.
Reviewed by P.K. Foster, teacher-librarian
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