From Now On
The Educational Technology Journal

 Vol 11|No 5|February|2002

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Review:
The First Computer Mouse

By David Demant, Curator of Digital Archives, Museum Victoria, Melbourne, Australia

ISBN 0-7311-8421-1
$ 12.00 USD list plus shipping and handling
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Reviewed by Jamie McKenzie
About the Author

The book's bright computer-generated illustrations were a creation of Deborah Koolen who is based in Melbourne. Deborah has worked in graphic art, design and illustration for the past 12 years, and now specializes as a freelance illustrator.

A fanciful children's story about the early days of computing when machines were huge and people fed them with paper tapes to tell them what to do, The First Computer Mouse tells the tale of a computing pioneer and his brush with a real live mouse who enjoys living under the warm belly of the first computer.

Demant combines the history of early computing with an entertaining human/animal twist.

Grandad explains the history of the first days of Australian computing to his grandkids and describes the colony of mice that coexisted with the computer scientists and the computer.

"Why didn't you get a cat to catch the mice?" asked Anna.

"Oh, because we were not allowed to have any animals near the computer."

Demant manages to humanize this aspect of computer literacy with his amusing story telling while the vivid illustrations bring the story to life in a way that an elementary teacher could hold up the book for all to see and enjoy.

"Grandad, if that was the first computer, you must have known the very first computer mouse."

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Photography by Jamie McKenzie

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