Meet the man behind the board games: Milton Bradley. Born in Maine in 1836, Milton Bradley moved with his family to the working-class city of Lowell, Massachusetts, at age 11. His early life consisted of several highs and lows, from graduating high school and attending Harvard to getting laid off and losing his first wife. These experiences gave Bradley the idea for his first board game: The Checkered Game of Life. He produced and sold Life across the country and it quickly became a national sensation. Working with his company, the Milton Bradley Company, he continued to produce board games, crayons, and kid-friendly school supplies for the rest of his life. He is often credited as the father of board games, and the Milton Bradley Company has created Battleship, Jenga, Yahtzee, Trouble, and many more classic games.

In this engaging biography, readers will learn about the builder of board games, Milton Bradley. Follow the story from Bradley's childhood, his early entrepreneurial work creating and selling stationery, his drafting education at Harvard, his first business creating and selling lithographs, and how these experiences came together when he formed the Milton Bradley Company and created the Game of Life. Bradley's family, retirement, and work producing educational materials to support the new movement in education called kindergarten are included. 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.

Meet the man behind the board games: Milton Bradley. Born in Maine in 1836, Milton Bradley moved with his family to the working-class city of Lowell, Massachusetts, at age 11. His early life consisted of several highs and lows, from graduating high school and attending Harvard to getting laid off and losing his first wife. These experiences gave Bradley the idea for his first board game: The Checkered Game of Life. He produced and sold Life across the country and it quickly became a national sensation. Working with his company, the Milton Bradley Company, he continued to produce board games, crayons, and kid-friendly school supplies for the rest of his life. He is often credited as the father of board games, and the Milton Bradley Company has created Battleship, Jenga, Yahtzee, Trouble, and many more classic games.

"It all began with one small step.Game Changer is the story of how a twenty-three-year-old waiter from Seattle had the outrageous dream of beating industry giants Milton Bradley and Mattel at their own game. With no experience, Rob Angel used his guts, drive, and intuition to create one of the most beloved board games of all time: Pictionary. Rob did it his way. He produced the first 1,000 games by hand in his tiny one- bedroom apartment, disrupted the market by selling to nontraditional retail outlets, and did countless demonstrations at the bottom of the escalator at Nordstrom-a store with no game department. Anything to succeed.Getting there wasn't easy; Rob had to navigate his way through production mishaps, cash flow troubles, and countless copycats trying to scratch their way past Pictionary. Still, within three years, Pictionary became the bestselling board game in North America, and shortly after, the world. When Mattel acquired Pictionary in 2001, a staggering 38,000,000 games had been sold in 60 countries.In Game Changer, Rob shares the remarkable inside story of taking Pictionary from simple idea to iconic global brand by breaking rules and breaking records, never giving up or giving in, and working harder when most would walk away all while having the time of his life. Candid and compelling, Game Changer is as much a captivating memoir as it is a blueprint to personal and professional success."

Profiles and prices games manufactured from 1822-1992, and gives histories of hundreds of manufacturers, including, Milton Bradley, Selchow & Righter, and Parker Brothers