Smart Money

School Library Journal

Gr 6 Up-This workmanlike biography paints a well-balanced picture of the youthful multibillionaire whose inventions made possible the rapid spread of the personal computer. Beginning with accounts of Gates's early precocity, Boyd seamlessly describes the young man's high-flying academic career and the pressures that caused him to drop out of Harvard to concentrate on business. To his credit, he describes Gates's abrasive personality and his unsparing treatment of colleagues and employees. He also does a good job of analyzing issues the man faced (e.g., programmers' financial control of software). The writing style effectively portrays the subject's high energy level through occasional telegraphic sentence fragments and frequent use of computer jargon, most of which is well explained. Black-and-white photos are scattered throughout. Ralph Zickgraf's William H. Gates (GEC, 1992) is much shorter and written in a breathless, enthusiastic style. The illustrations in that book are much more useful, and its organization better captures readers' interest, but the text is far behind current developments. There should be room in most collections for both titles.-Jonathan Betz-Zall, Sno-Isle Regional Library System, Edmonds, WA

Anne O'Malley

Boy genius Bill Gates liked tinkering with primitive personal computer prototypes so much that in the 1970s he was able to launch a small company that offered traffic flow data information to municipalities--and he was still in high school. The rest is history, of course. Microsoft mogul and billionaire Gates combined his passion for computers and business in a fascinating success story. By founding the company that created the MS-DOS and Windows operating systems and a host of household-name software products that he could license to any computer manufacturer, Gates is part of the microcomputer success story. Although the writing style is choppy and rushed, Boyd's biography will draw readers, especially young computer enthusiasts, because Gates is so interesting; more than a testimonial, this portrait gives a clear picture of how personal computers came to be. Bibliography of sources; chronology; glossary.