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Toy Trailblazers
Pokémon Designer: Satoshi Tajiri
In this engaging biography, readers will learn about the designer of Pokémon, Satoshi Tajiri. Follow the story of Tajiri as he founds Game Freakmagazine which turned into Game Freak video-game development company and the creation of the Pokémon video games, trading cards, television series, and Pokémon Go! Sidebars, historic photos, and a glossary enhance readers' understanding of this topic. Additional features include a table of contents, an index, a timeline and fun facts. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Checkerboard Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.
32 pages, Library Binding
Published September 1, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
September 7, 2023
What an amazing story! The ability to start a universe of your own and then invite others into it has always facinated me. This is a wonderful series that really connects young readers to the people who shape the world of pop culture. That these people continue to shape global trends in branding is what makes them so interesting.
October 18, 2018
My grandsons played, collected, and watched Pokémon for years. I gave away a huge stash of playing cards as bookmarks but my teachers were a bit annoyed as the cards seemed to interfere with class work at times. I had no idea they were still so popular and collectible!
Great nonfiction book with all the elements you would expect to find from contents, photos, diagrams (very clever and useful information to have), timeline, glossary, index, and bib/webliography are all included in this little book. The information about the creator of Pokémon is wonderful as well from bugs, disappointing his parents, to millionaire!
Great nonfiction book with all the elements you would expect to find from contents, photos, diagrams (very clever and useful information to have), timeline, glossary, index, and bib/webliography are all included in this little book. The information about the creator of Pokémon is wonderful as well from bugs, disappointing his parents, to millionaire!
July 21, 2018
A short, easy-to-read biography that charts how Tajiri got into game design, and the history of the Pokemon franchise. I was interested to learn that the Pokemon design stage starts with the silhouette, and it must be different enough from the existing silhouettes in order to continue developing the character.
June 16, 2026
Mostly informative with great pictures and an interesting story, but several incorrect pieces of information are included:
Chapter 5, titled "Poky Progress," implies an incorrect pronunciation of Pokémon.
Page 16 states that the main character of both the manga and anime is Satoshi, but the manga's original protagonist is Red, before moving on to Yellow and other subsequent video game protagonists. While manga adaptations of the anime exist, they are not the main manga series.
Page 23 includes images of unofficial bootleg toys with incorrect color schemes, presenting them as if they are official merchandise and designs alongside descriptions of how designs are approved.
The information about Satoshi Tajiri was interesting, but his story is quickly dropped to instead discuss the success of the Pokémon franchise and its marketing for the majority of the book.
For the reasons mentioned above, I cannot recommend this book.
Chapter 5, titled "Poky Progress," implies an incorrect pronunciation of Pokémon.
Page 16 states that the main character of both the manga and anime is Satoshi, but the manga's original protagonist is Red, before moving on to Yellow and other subsequent video game protagonists. While manga adaptations of the anime exist, they are not the main manga series.
Page 23 includes images of unofficial bootleg toys with incorrect color schemes, presenting them as if they are official merchandise and designs alongside descriptions of how designs are approved.
The information about Satoshi Tajiri was interesting, but his story is quickly dropped to instead discuss the success of the Pokémon franchise and its marketing for the majority of the book.
For the reasons mentioned above, I cannot recommend this book.
January 10, 2019
My only quibble with this book is that it did not have enough pictures of the various Pokémon!!! But very informative, my kids enjoyed it.
March 14, 2019
Fun read aloud with John
May 6, 2019
I really like how it tells you how Pokémon started
June 19, 2019
Interesting for me to look at a timeline...for Alex not enough Pokemon although it is about the designer.
February 28, 2020
I read this on Hoopla, and it wasn't a bad read...
Most of the information wasn't new to me, but a kid just getting into or still learning about the franchise might like reading about all of this.
Most of the information wasn't new to me, but a kid just getting into or still learning about the franchise might like reading about all of this.
April 11, 2022
Great book for young readers about the creator of Pokémon!
December 23, 2017
This book has lots of great information and I had no idea the Pokemon creator had thought of and designed so many other projects for Nintendo. A bit dry in places, but overall a very interesting biography.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews