David Karp: The Mastermind behind Tumblr
Written by Karen Latchana Kenney
In an age when everyone has at least five email addresses and many people have a personal blogs, some applications and websites continue to outshine all the others. Tumblr is right up there with Facebook and Microsoft in name recognition, at least among those familiar with coding. Tumblr is described as a short-form blog in which the owner can post pictures, chats, or songs – more than Twitter and less than Facebook. Even as a child, David Karp, Tumblr’s founder, showed amazing talent for programming and for coming up with innovative ideas. He worked as an intern at the age of fourteen and had his first real job at UrbanBaby at sixteen. Because of his age, he avoided contact with those he worked with and even secretly worked for a New York company from Tokyo for a while. With the money David made at UrbanBaby, he was able to start his own company, Davidville. Tumblr was launched as part of this company in February 2007. Today, with over 50 billion entries, it’s grown into a major force on the internet.
Written at a fourth grade reading level, the text chronicles the career of a man who was very young when he started taking the world by storm. That fact alone should appeal to kids. This is a part of series called “Gateway Biographies,” with an interesting collection of inspiring people. For added value, the author includes a table of contents, timeline, source notes, bibliography, web sources, and index. Kids curious about the internet can easily create reading activities with the sources listed and a little supervision.
TITLE: David Karp: The Mastermind behind Tumblr- AUTHOR: Karen Latchana Kenney
- PUBLISHER: Lerner Publications Company
- REVIEWER: Sue Poduska
- EDITION: Hardback, 2013
- ISBN: 978-1-4677-1285-9
- GENRE: Biography, Internet
- LEXILE: 740
