Mark Zuckerberg – Facebook Creator


Have kids moved on from Facebook yet?

If not, this book in the Innovators series is a surefire hit, pairing the deets of a social network they know intimately (sometimes too intimately) and a biography of someone with whom they can readily identify.

Born in—brace yourself—1984, Zuckerberg parlayed his computer-geek pastimes into a global phenomenon when he decided to make an online version of the student facebook while studying at Harvard.

Facemash, as it was called, was quickly shut down, but the second generation product (humorously called The Facebook) took off like wildfire.

This brisk, readable entry in the Innovators series presents an appealing picture of the shy, lonely future billionaire, who had a Star Wars–themed bar mitzvah and whose one brush with coolness was excelling on his college fencing team.

Woog sometimes pushes a little hard, as when he insists, twice, that the early Facebook offices looked like a college dorm.

Still, this is fascinating and relevant stuff, although the site’s recent privacy concerns cast a much darker shadow. Where’s the like button? Grades 4-7. –Daniel Kraus (for Amazon)