A must for any collection of programming books for kids.
A Scratch programming introduction with wide scope.
The book opens with an introduction to Scratch programming (with graphics that take good advantage of the program’s color-coded visual interface in explanations of each element) and how to access it. Following that, this guide takes young programmers through a variety of games, Scratch’s visual tools and animation, and sound incorporation, and it even touches on basic circuitry. Full-color screenshots of exactly how things will appear on a computer screen are shown large size, in line with font sizing and spacing designed with the audience—independent readers—in mind, producing a book that minimizes the need for adult assistance. While this surprisingly packed volume doesn’t touch much on troubleshooting and mucking about in code to see what happens as some other Scratch guides for kids do, its approach (emphasizing the purpose of each step it asks readers to take) is clear, thorough, and especially accessible for less-confident learners. The extensive instructions on image creation and animation will enable just about anyone to create something nifty, and they provide tools for those with artistic aspirations to advance with their own embellishments. The final section covers music, note by note, and how to connect and program a Makey Makey controller kit (a basic interface that allows anything that can conduct a small charge to function as a button).
A must for any collection of programming books for kids. (glossary) (Nonfiction. 8-14)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5435-3589-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
Hot on the heels of the well-received Leonardo da Vinci (2005) comes another agreeably chatty entry in the Giants of Science series. Here the pioneering physicist is revealed as undeniably brilliant, but also cantankerous, mean-spirited, paranoid and possibly depressive. Newton’s youth and annus mirabilis receive respectful treatment, the solitude enforced by family estrangement and then the plague seen as critical to the development of his thoughtful, methodical approach. His subsequent squabbles with the rest of the scientific community—he refrained from publishing one treatise until his rival was dead—further support the image of Newton as a scientific lone wolf. Krull’s colloquial treatment sketches Newton’s advances in clearly understandable terms without bogging the text down with detailed explanations. A final chapter on “His Impact” places him squarely in the pantheon of great thinkers, arguing that both his insistence on the scientific method and his theories of physics have informed all subsequent scientific thought. A bibliography, web site and index round out the volume; the lack of detail on the use of sources is regrettable in an otherwise solid offering for middle-grade students. (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-670-05921-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
A stimulating outing to the furthest reaches of our knowledge, certain to inspire deep thoughts.
From a Caldecott and Sibert honoree, an invitation to take a mind-expanding journey from the surface of our planet to the furthest reaches of the observable cosmos.
Though Chin’s assumption that we are even capable of understanding the scope of the universe is quixotic at best, he does effectively lead viewers on a journey that captures a sense of its scale. Following the model of Kees Boeke’s classic Cosmic View: The Universe in Forty Jumps (1957), he starts with four 8-year-old sky watchers of average height (and different racial presentations). They peer into a telescope and then are comically startled by the sudden arrival of an ostrich that is twice as tall…and then a giraffe that is over twice as tall as that…and going onward and upward, with ellipses at each page turn connecting the stages, past our atmosphere and solar system to the cosmic web of galactic superclusters. As he goes, precisely drawn earthly figures and features in the expansive illustrations give way to ever smaller celestial bodies and finally to glimmering swirls of distant lights against gulfs of deep black before ultimately returning to his starting place. A closing recap adds smaller images and additional details. Accompanying the spare narrative, valuable side notes supply specific lengths or distances and define their units of measure, accurately explain astronomical phenomena, and close with the provocative observation that “the observable universe is centered on us, but we are not in the center of the entire universe.”
A stimulating outing to the furthest reaches of our knowledge, certain to inspire deep thoughts. (afterword, websites, further reading) (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4623-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Neal Porter/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
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