I previously reviewed a book intended to teach programming to kids, Super Scratch Programming Adventure. That book used a self-contained editor and language that was easy to understand, easy to use, but confined its usefulness to a very limited set of roles. This is because of how Scratch is run and written.
It is no secret that I like Python. Even though I really don’t write code anymore, at least not very often, for most purposes I am still a big fan of Python over any other programming language I have learned. I’ve reviewed two Python books in the past, Learning Python and Python for Unix and Linux System Administration. While I know people who use Python as a beginner’s language for kids, I had not done any reading nor read any curriculum used for teaching programming to kids using Python that I felt I could recommend freely. Until now.
Python for Kids: A Playful Introduction to Programming is by Jason R. Briggs. It is the book that fills the hole in my Python library. It starts with a nice introduction and installation instructions for Windows 7, Mac OS X, and most importantly to me, Ubuntu (on which you are really only checking to make sure you have Python 3 installed, since Python is installed by default, although Ubuntu releases older than 12.04 may still have Python 2.x installed as default). Perhaps it is because we started in a similar era, but I found Briggs very easy to read and follow; like me, he started out by learning BASIC on a TRS-80. More likely, the clarity and tone are the result of an intentional focus so that kids can comprehend the complexities of the material. In either case, he did a wonderful job.
The book is broken down into logical chapters, each building upon the previous ones. It starts with foundational concepts like variables and calculations, adds types like strings and lists and tuples, then begins with an introduction to graphic interaction using the turtle module. This is much sooner than typical, and I think it is beneficial because it gives kids a quicker jump to that fun moment of power, “Hey! I just made that thing move on the screen.”
Then the book builds understanding with explanations of if and else statements and loops. On top of that are added the concepts of functions, modules, classes, and objects. We are now a mere third of the way through the book.
From here on, the simple explanations given will be expanded upon in easily-absorbed chunks. Built-in Python functions and useful modules each get a chapter. Then, we revisit turtle graphics to play some more. Once the basic graphic concepts are taught with turtle, tkinter is presented.
The last third of the book is focused on games. Specifically, using some fun game examples to flesh out the concepts more completely, developing greater fluency with the concepts, grammar, and vocabulary already presented.
One weakness of many beginning programming books is that once you finish the book you have to do further research on your own to figure out what to do next. I love that Python for Kids does not end this way, but instead includes a useful Appendix titled Where to Go from Here. This Appendix is short, but gives enough information to help the reader learn just a little bit about some Python resources and other programming languages to make those next steps just a little bit easier.
This book is suitable for kids in upper elementary school and older. The only real prerequisites are the ability to read and understand the concepts and a computer that will run Python. While the book is clearly written using suitably simple vocabulary, it is not watered down and never talks down to the reader. For this reason, despite the title, this book could be just as useful for the adult programming novice, too.
Disclosure: I was given my copy of this book by the publisher as a review copy.