While today’s book, ‘Creative Coding in Python’, is not a women/girl-focused book, it is a STEM book written by a woman. This book is written by an educator who knows how important STEM is for today’s students, and how important it is to encourage more girls to be actively involved and stay in STEM.

And I thought this book might just be perfect for today – Pi-Day – 3/14 (py-day!?)

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The Book: Creative Coding in Python

My Thoughts:

First Thoughts:

Love, love all the cute, robotic characters used in the book to help guide the reader along! The organization of the book is logical and makes for easy learning as it progresses from the simplest to the more complex concepts and exercises for coding in Python.

The Introduction:

The introduction is pretty comprehensive in what it includes; though briefly and simply written to appeal to the target audience, it is a hold-all type of introduction.

It includes topics such as: what is coding, why coding, why Python, as well as how to install and start using Python. The introduction also has a beginners overview of programming concepts such as functions, errors, algorithms, pseudocode, as well as flowcharts; this will definitely help the reader. In addition, a how to use the book text-box makes it easy to navigate the rest of the book.

The Chapters:

The individual chapters themselves are super-interesting and easy to follow. They are organized by ideas and programming concepts; including but not limited to – data use and storage, loops, lists, conditional statements, functions, and GUI.

Each chapter teaches those concepts using straight-forward, easy to understand instructions that do not talk down to the reader! It also uses examples that take the reader step by step, so we can code along with the teacher – the book, in this case.

The reader is encouraged to try out the concepts learned earlier with exercises as the chapter (and the book) progresses. Both concepts and exercises gradually and smoothly increase in complexity; allowing the reader to build on previous knowledge.

Each chapter ends with a project that the reader can work on using those ideas and concepts learned earlier; along with a next steps section that gives us more ways we can use and enhance our learning from that chapter.

Chapter projects are fun projects, starting from the simpler to more complex ones – chatbots, geometric art, and games (dice games. arcade games and more).

Towards the End:

The book ends with a useful glossary of terms, resources used for the book that the reader can use to do further learning (and trust me, after reading this book, you will be looking forward to learning more as the author does a wonderful job of making learning coding fun)

Additional Thoughts:

I love that the author introduces so many concepts that normally do not make it into a coding book for beginners – like GUI and gaming! Using graphics and gaming is a wonderful way to ensure kids will want to and enjoy learning.

Though I am not a beginner to coding or to Python(relatively), I did learn quite a bit from this book. I also had lots of fun doing the exercises (still many remaining to work on that I am looking forward to as well!)

What I have discovered about Python is there are so many in-built functions as well as modules to import and add-on, that I have much to learn still; and this book confirms that fact for me.

This book seamlessly introduces the readers to additional topics of importing modules (turtle and Tkinter for example) as they work on creating artistic masterpieces and cool games!

In Summary:

Oh how I wish I could say ‘Great Snakes!’ (with a complimentary inflection, of course) to describe this book in two words! But the origin and usage of that phrase seems to be in question still.

Anyways, this book is definitely a great book for anyone who wants to start learning Python using these creative means. Perfect for middle-schoolers, and will work for learners of all ages as well. Teachers will also find this book valuable.

Rating: 5+/5
Reading Level: Middle-graders and above as well!

Disclaimer:Many thanks to Quarto Publishing and Netgalley for the eARC of this book. The opinions expressed are my own and not influenced by others.

And if I have tempted you enough to get this for yourself (that is, if you managed to reach this point in this long review post of mine!!), you can use the following links to buy it or look into it further.

Goodreads|| Amazon|| Book Depository
Target|| Barnes and Noble 

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This goes towards the March edition of the Diversify Your Reading Challenge