![]() ![]() In “Coyote Sings to the Moon,” the doo-wop hymn sung nightly by Old Woman and all the animals except tone-deaf Coyote isn’t enough to keep Moon from hiding out at the bottom of the lake-until she is finally driven forth by Coyote’s awful wailing. One of the two has never been offered south of the (Canadian) border. Two republished tales by a Greco-Cherokee author feature both folkloric and modern elements as well as new illustrations. Great fun for math enthusiasts and creative thinkers, this might also teach adults some new tricks. Once the reader has seen the answers, the strategy is obvious and can be applied to other situations. Some riddles are very challenging, but the author provides all the solutions in the back. The extra-large, brightly colored images leap off the page but never distract from the author’s intent. Each rhyme is given a double-page spread. Count by threes for half the pie, and double it. For example: “Mama mia, pizza pie, / How many mushrooms do you spy? / Please don’t count them, it’s too slow, / This hot pie was made to go! / Let me give you some advice, / Just do half and count it twice.” A quick look at the pizza, and the reader can see each slice has the same number of mushrooms. Here the rhyme gives a clue to the new ways of grouping numbers. It’s a return to number sets, with none of those boring parentheses and signs. ![]() This genuinely clever math book uses rhyming couplets and riddles, as well as visual cues to help the reader find new ways to group numbers for quick counting. A “What Next?” chapter directs readers toward potential futures as programmers, be it hobbyist or professional.Īn absolutely wonderful introduction to programming games. Each game chapter ends with a “Hacks and tweaks” section suggesting further customizations, sometimes building off previous chapters’ code. What’s especially nice about the instructions is that they aren’t framed as “do this, then this”-they fully explain why (right down to meanings of number variables) and provide fixes for anticipated bugs. Frequently, readers create their own images instead of using preprogrammed ones. While sometimes pages are information-dense, the steps’ numbering is easy to follow. ![]() Clear text and screenshots-of both code blocks and game visuals-then walk readers through each increasingly complicated programming step. Each of the eight games given (including mazes, jumping games, music patterns, races, and more) starts with a screenshot of the finished game that explains the roles of the characters and players’ objectives. After this introduction, the book quickly has readers programming interactive games with animated characters, enemies, and scoring systems galore. Woodcock begins by contextualizing computer games (explaining their elements, genres, and how computers think) and introducing Scratch (explaining its building blocks and how to acquire it and providing a rundown of what each part of the Scratch control window means). A comprehensive guide to creating games in Scratch, a beginner-oriented programming language that uses visual blocks instead of raw code. ![]()
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