Google It: A History of Google

A visiting friend’s twelve-year-old son picked this book up from my couch and became immediately absorbed in it. He had been watching a lot of videos over the summer, so my friend was thrilled that he voluntarily picked up a book. He was partway through when it was time to leave, so I just let him take my copy, then bought another so I could finish reading it. I found the stories behind various Google products – Google News, Doodle, and Maps – fascinating, and the photos and graphics kept the information lively. Some of my favorite parts of the book were the brief, but hilarious digressions (check out the “shag carpet” aside in chapter 5). The best thing about this book is the way it shows kids that there’s a path forward for innovators and dreamers!

Beautifully written. Inspirational.

Incredibly well-written book that quickly sheds light on how communication was changed worldwide with a start-up called Google. I’m a teacher, and I constantly recommend this book to my middle school readers.

From the first page, a fascinating read about the two men who "wanted to organize the internet" for their dissertation projects and ended up "changing the world" when they created Google. I did not realize how much "Google" influences my life and how much more it may do so in the future; and I did not realize how Googlers learned as they went, always in pursuit of helping their users. In the beginning, you could only use Google to search text based info on the web, but then when everyone wanted to see an image of Jennifer Lopez’s dress at the 2000 Grammy Awards, Google figured out how we could search images. When 9-11-2001 happened, everyone wanted to search the web for current news, but Google only updated key words (based on new postings) every 24 hours at that point so when you searched Twin Towers, you weren’t seeing the news necessarily; they figured out how to change that. Redding chronicles not only how Google (originally "Backrub") took off (Lego Duplo blocks were involved), but what they are doing to move us toward the future (think health, space travel, driverless cars and more). She does this in a conversational tone that YA (plus 5th-8th grade) readers will be drawn to and with a clear writing style that unpacks some difficult concepts. Two DOWN POINTS to consider (but not deal breakers) - 1) The quality of the photos is not great and some of the text is printed on a dark background with the print that is too pale to read well. I think there were some design decisions - how do we break up the text? how do we make it YA appealing? - that may have gotten in the way. 2) While there are a few points in the book, where Redding explores how some have criticized Google for failing their users in some way and Google has responded by making changes, Redding's perspective for the most part is a sort of 'feel good about Google' and 'Isn't Google amazing?' conversation. YA readers need to be aware of this and consider what the author has left out. A reoccurring note in the book is the internal MOTTO at Google of "DON'T BE EVIL"; as I was reading this news broke about YouTube, a subsidiary of Google, collecting children’s personal information without their parents’ consent and then about Google possibly violating the Sherman Anti-trust Act that outlaws monopolistic business practices. Readers should look for other perspectives or read additional sources to learn more about Google. On a similar note, the author describes how people who work at Google get 20% of their time to work on projects of their own choice (this is how we got Gmail). There has been some debate in the press in the last few years (but beginning prior to the publication of this book) over whether, in reality, this is true. It’s very hard to make that time for professional inquiry of your own when you have an overwhelming job at Google. Some think the 20% independent inquiry time Google says they give employees is primarily a way the company promotes itself. I’m not saying that the company Google is bad. I’m just saying that a reader needs to be aware of the author’s apparent perspective and of the perspective the reader begins to develop as they read this book (because of reading this book). Looking for other perspectives should be encouraged. (Personally, as a child of the 80s where you could only find info at the library, I appreciate everything Google has done for my life.) NOT A DEAL BREAKER. I’d STILL RECOMMEND THIS TO YOUR STUDENTS.

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