Jeff Bezos

VOYA

Latinos in the Limelight is an eight-volume biography series about famous Hispanics. Some names are familiar and obvious to teenagers—Ricky Martin, Christina Aguilera, Antonio Banderas, Selena, and Jennifer Lopez are well-known Hispanic entertainers. Others, such as Jeff Bezos, the man behind Amazon.com, and Oscar De La Hoya, a welterweight boxer, are not. Time magazine named Bezos "Person of the Year in 1999. His biography begins with this accomplishment and then looks back to what led up to it. There is a brief discussion of his childhood, but most of the book focuses on his work as the founder of his online bookstore. Bezos is compared with other revolutionary businessmen—Steve Jobs of Apple and Sam Walton of Wal-Mart. Each volume includes five to seven short chapters on the subject's life and a brief chronology. There is also a section of awards won or career highlights for those in the public spotlight. Pictures and graphs accompany the simple writing. These brief books will not qualify for reports that require a one-hundred-page minimum, but the series adequately introduces the lives it examines and will fulfill the demand for multicultural biographies. Suitable for a middle school collection, the series should be prominently displayed for browsing. Index. Photos. Charts. Further Reading. Chronology. VOYA CODES: 3Q 3P M (Readable without serious defects; Will appeal with pushing; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8). 2001, Chelsea House, 64p,
— Jennifer Rice