An ambitious coder’s new best friend
A kids’ guide to coding simple games using CSS and JavaScript.
The multiethnic group of Ruby, Markus, Grace, Rusty, and their cat mascot, Scratch, invites readers to help them as they prepare five different games for a hackathon in which they will compete against their rival, SaberTooth Studios. The types of games are tic-tac-toe (called “noughts and crosses,” to align with the British creator’s website), a snake game, table tennis, an endless-runner game similar to Temple Run, and a side-scrolling platformer (think: Super Mario). Each lesson takes readers through it one game component at a time, ultimately building the code to double-page spreads that display the full code for each game at the end of its chapter. These lessons do a good job of contextualizing and explaining how the code functions as well as showing how much code goes into even the most basic of games. The Get Coding website is also referenced throughout as a resource for the activities and a source for some components of the final game (the shortest chapter of the book). The hackathon storyline, however, feels tacked on and provides little benefit—the premise is repeated a couple of times and then resolves off-page between chapters 4 and 5. The design helps break down explanatory text and walls of code into manageable chunks (though the escalating complexity of code may intimidate some beginners), and the illustrations will be full color. Along with an index, there’s an introduction with an efficient history of computer games.
An ambitious coder’s new best friend . (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5362-1030-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
This appealing work stands as both a portrait of two unconventional women and a celebration of the possibilities of arts...
An affectionate, lively examination of the reciprocal relationship between a great artist and two great art lovers.
Etta and Claribel Cone, unmarried sisters from a wealthy Baltimore family, "were born around the time of the Civil War" and became energetic, discerning collectors of modern art, particularly that of Henri Matisse. Claribel Cone was a doctor; Etta Cone managed her parents' household. Both traveled extensively in Europe and, around the turn of the 20th century, fell in with Leo and Gertrude Stein. Informed by Leo's adventuresome sense of aesthetics as well as their own daring tastes, they embraced the works of the young Matisse in 1905 and enthusiastically befriended him. Fillion sketches her characters neatly and swiftly, following the women over the next decades as they amassed what became one of the most significant American collections of modern European art. Though this is not a beginner’s text, she folds in economical explanations of early-20th-century European art, cogently contextualizing Matisse and his contemporaries. Their account is lavishly illustrated in full color by reproductions from the Cone Collection at the Baltimore Museum of Art and Matisse-inflected paintings by the author, who drew extensively on the Cone archive that is also housed at the museum.
This appealing work stands as both a portrait of two unconventional women and a celebration of the possibilities of arts patronage. (author/illustrator's note, bibliography, sources) (Biography. 10-14)Pub Date: July 25, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-56792-434-3
Page Count: 92
Publisher: Godine
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
Mild amusement for armchair travelers, offering (as the intro puts it) “all of the adventure with none of the stitches.”...
From “Airplane Crashes” to “Whitewater” and “Woods,” an alphabetical tally of hazardous situations with (usually) a few coping strategies.
The sixth “Junior Edition” in the Worst Case Scenario franchise gathers abbreviated or rewritten versions of 63 natural hazards covered in the adult volumes but probably new to the intended audience. Each gets a spread of photos and lighthearted cartoons of young folk in extremis, which accompany briefly described scenarios, background explanations, general safety tips and common-sense behaviors. Not much of all this is intended to be seriously helpful—for one thing, the format doesn’t lend itself to quick reference, and for another, the likelihood of any readers running with the bulls in Pamplona, surviving an asteroid collision or encountering a gorilla in the wild is low. Furthermore, victims of sudden amnesia are advised not to seek medical help but just wait, as it’ll go away in 24 hours, a method of cracking open coconuts with a pointed stick is actively dangerous and the only suggested strategy for dealing with killer whales is to “keep your distance.”
Mild amusement for armchair travelers, offering (as the intro puts it) “all of the adventure with none of the stitches.” (Browsing item. 10-12)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8118-7690-2
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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