New Book Review: "Python Programming for Beginners"
New book review for Python Programming for Beginners: A Kid's Guide to Coding Fundamentals, by Patricia Foster, Rockridge Press, 2020:
Copy provided by Amazon.
In her one-page "How to Use this Book" introduction, Foster states that "this book will teach you the basics of Python programming", and "it's going to teach you how to think like a coder!" The material is broken down into the following ten chapters, followed by half a dozen pages comprising debugging tips, a glossary, and a list of suggested web resources: (1) "Welcome to Programming!", (2) "Python: The Basics", (3) "Variables", (4) "Data Types", (5) "Data Structures", (6) "Conditionals", (7) "Loops", (8) "Functions", (9) "Turtle Module", and (10) "Game On: Putting it All Together".
The author's presentation is organized well, introducing topics which build upon each other along the way, and the illustrations at the beginning of each chapter are colorful, catering to pre-teen children interested in programming fundamentals. Unfortunately, there are also many issues along the way. While I initially made an effort to ignore these issues, I started taking notes after finding myself losing track. Children working through this book, and those guiding them, will likely not notice these issues unless acquainted with programming themselves, in which case they also will likely not be in the target market for this book.