Programming Games and Animation (Kids Get Coding) Paperback – August 1, 2017 by Heather Lyons (Author), Alex Westgate (Illustrator) (Lernerclassroom) (IBRCookBooks)

Perhaps you’ve always wanted to learn about computer programming in games and animation. Not to worry, Data Duck will give you a hand.  He tells us that “computer code is a set of rules or instructions”  and that they “tell the computer how our game works, what it looks like, and how it is played.” It sounds like a tall order, but not to worry, Data Duck will help guide you in your quest to program.  You can learn as you go by actually practicing what you know online ... in real time!  Of course we’re getting ahead of ourselves because you’ll have to learn some of the basics of design and computer code.

If you love computer games, you’re probably anxious to learn to make your own. There are many computers all around you including “cell phones, tablets, and games consoles.” It a nutshell, a computer is “anything that works with a computer ‘brain,’ or a microprocessor.” Check out the desk of the boy with Data Duck. Do you have everything you need to play and create your own games? Chances are you do, but if not the things you need may be at your school. First of all, you start by designing “your game to have a story.”

Data Duck tells us that game developers “think about how the game will look” and “write down the story the game will tell and draw what the characters and scenes will look like.” That’s one thing, but animating your characters is yet another one because you want them to move, move, move! As you work your way through this book, you’ll get ideas for creating your own game. You’ll learn about animation, “bugs” (or errors), debugging, coding, and other ultra-cool things about “programming games and animation!”

This is a basic book about computer programming and animation for young students.  This is a curriculum-based beginning chapter book that would be perfect to help launch our youngest computer buffs into coding, especially if their into games.  This book can / should be used in conjunction with the blue shift website where children can practice what they’ve learned.  There are exercises that can be worked on at home or in a classroom.  For example, you can learn more about debugging, writing programs, learn to predict what programs will do, and work with coordinates.  Of course Data Duck will be there to help.  This series, “Kids Get Coding,” is an excellent introduction to the world of coding.