The Boy Who Thought Outside The Box by Marcie Wessels

Ralph Baer lived in Cologne, Germany and loved to play with his best friend Herbert. However, when Hitler became leader of Germany, he "blamed the country's problems on Jewish people." The Nazi soldiers had orders to attack Jews and many others whom they considered as "undesirable." It was no longer safe for Ralph to play outside.

Forced to stay in his home, Ralph began to tinker with his construction set. The models were easy to build, so Ralph began to think outside the box and work on new ideas.

When he was fourteen, Ralph was forced to leave school because Jews were no longer allowed to attend. At home he continued studying, taught himself English and eventually in 1938, he and his family fled Germany for the United States.

In New York, Ralph and his father obtained work in a leather goods factory, attaching buttons to cosmetic cases. At night the family did piecework to supplement their income. To help, Ralph designed a special machine to make their work go faster.

At seventeen, Ralph took a radio repair course and began repairing the radios of their neighbours. Life changed drastically when war broke out and Ralph was drafted into the U.S. Army at age twenty-one. During his time in the army, Ralph was able to build his own radio. After the war, Ralph studied at the American Television Institute of Technology. At this time, television was rapidly replacing radio as the most popular way people obtained their news and entertainment. Ralph's work in a lab designing television sets led him to envision another possible use for the television: to play games.

In 1951 Ralph tried "to convince his boss to build games directly into television consoles" but his boss was not impressed. So Ralph simply packed his idea away for the next fifteen years as he worked on many other projects. It wasn't until 1966 that Ralph revisited his idea of playing games on the television. This time he had the idea to create a separate box. Eventually Ralph and his team got this working. But this time no one would make the "brown box" that was the controller for the games. It wasn't until 1972 that Ralph's idea finally came to market and the first video game system was sold for television!

Discussion

The Boy Who Thought Outside The Box highlights the creative ingenuity of Rudolph Heinrich (Ralph) Baer, the man who invented video games. Ralph's story is one of resiliency and determination in the face of great adversity. When he was persecuted for being Jewish and forced first out of school and eventually to flee his home country, Ralph spent time educating himself and later on developing his skills in electronics. Even when he came up with the idea to use the television to play games, an idea that was far ahead of its time, he was turned down. Although he shelved his idea for a period of fifteen years, it was not forgotten. His persistence led to the first video games being sold in 1975. Ralph ultimately persisted and his story is an inspiration for all inventors who may be told their ideas are not possible. You can explore more about Ralph Baer from his website.

Wessels brings to life a story most people aren't familiar with, how video games came to be. As the author indicates in her note at the back of the book, video games are now an integral part of our culture.  Popular home video games such as Wii, Playstation and Xbox are descendants of Ralph's Brown Box. But in the 1950's and 1960's such games didn't exist and it wasn't until the 1980's that video gaming really became popular. This shows how forward thinking Ralph Baer really was!

Accompanying Wessels' straightforward text are the colourful illustrations of Beatriz Castro, a Spanish illustrator. Wessels also includes an Additional Reading section and a Selected Bibliography. 

Book Details:

The Boy Who Thought Outside The Box by Marcie Wessels
New York: Sterling Children's Books