Anastasia Suen - Developmental Editor

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Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python
by Al Sweigart (Author)

Booktalk: Learn how to make computer games using the popular Python programming language–even if you’ve never programmed before!

Begin by building classic games like Hangman, Guess the Number, and Tic-Tac-Toe, and then work your way up to more advanced games, like a text-based treasure hunting game and an animated collision-dodging game with sound effects. Along the way, you’ll learn key programming and math concepts that will help you take your game programming to the next level.

Snippet: All you need is a computer, some free software called the Python interpreter, and this book. Once you learn how to create the games in this book, you’ll be able to develop games on your own.

Computers are incredible machines, and learning how to program them isn’t as hard as people think. A computer program is a bunch of instructions that the computer can understand, just like a storybook is a bunch of sentences that a reader can understand. To instruct a computer, you write a program in a language the computer understands. This book will teach you a programming language called Python.

It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)

Outside Shot
by Fred Bowen (Author)

Booktalk: Eighth-grader Richie Mallon has always known he was a shooter, but will his amazing shooting talent be enough to keep him on the team? He has practiced every day at his driveway hoop, perfecting his technique. Richie never plays any other roles on the court; he lets his teammates do the assisting and rebounding. Richie makes the team under a tough new coach, but he’s not a starter. When his shooting skills go into a slump, he must find a way to become a more well-rounded player.

Snippet:

“All right, let’s scrimmage.”

Those words are music to my ears. At last we can stop doing the orange cone drill. We’re more than halfway through the season and I still can’t stand those cones.

Of course, scrimmaging isn’t so great either, since I’m stuck on the second team–the Blue shirts. I think Coach has stopped thinking of me as a possible starter, and I can’t blame him. A shooter who isn’t shooting so great can’t start for anyone.