Help Your Kids with Computer Coding by DK Books

I'm more of a fiction reader, but this book is so good about opening the doors to what could be a very intimidating subject that I decided to write a review about this book. This book was also featured on my Kto6Science blog.

There are four books in this series I saw at Costco, and I had planned to feature them all together. But as I read through them more thoroughly, I realized that each of them is worthy of its own post. So, here I am starting with this one.

I've heard a lot about coding, and when I saw it at Costco while back, I thought I'd pick it up. I don't know much about coding, and I thought this might be a good book for all of us (my daughter and me) to get started.

One thing I REALLY like about this book is that it seems so friendly. Technical books can be quite intimidating, yet this one is quite friendly with a lot of graphics and explanations. As I said, I don't know much about coding, so this was a good fit for me. But if you know a little more, I'm not sure how you'd feel about this book. You might think it's too easy.

This book is broken into roughly four sections. 

The first section is about Scratch (an MIT developed coding language).

My daughter and I worked on installing it and working on a project together last year when she was in 2nd grade. Sure, we had our share of glitches (typos for small fingers), but it was fairly painless to follow the book & program something to see it work.

The second section is about Python. Python is a text-based programming language (the type I'm familiar with). Dare I date myself and tell you that my first computer language was...Fortran?

OK. I haven't coded in Python, yet, but one thing I love about this book is that it gives you equivalent commands in both Python (left hand light blue column) and Scratch (right hand more colorful column). So, if you've coded with Scratch already, it would be easier for you to understand what you're doing in Python (theoretically speaking).

This third section is a brief introduction to what's inside a computer.

The last section is about programming in the real world.

I bought this book from Costco for $11.95 last year, but a couple of weeks ago, when I went to Costco, I saw it there, again. So, if you have a Costco in your neighborhood (and who doesn't), you might want to pick one up. It's a great deal at the sticker price of $19.95 (especially when you think about how much you have to pay for a week of programming classes).

Enjoy!

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

This book surprised me in a couple of ways.

I'm pretty good at guessing the ending of the book. Maybe it's because I'm a writer, but I can consistently guess the ending. However, I had no idea how this book would end, and even a few tendrils of ideas I had, nothing worked out the way I thought it might.

The book rating on the back cover said Ages 10 and Up, but I'm not sure I agree with that. There is a certain viciousness in this book that startled and shocked me. I didn't expect it from such a young character. Although a lot of books have Ages so and up, usually the kids who are at least 2 or 3 years younger start to read up to the age rating. At that point, I feel that this book is not appropriate for kids who are younger than 10. AND I wouldn't let my daughter read it until she's about 11 or 12.

HOWEVER, I enjoyed this book, and I'd like to recommend it to anyone who likes a good action/adventure. That is anyone older than 10, but probably 12.

Spoiler Alert~

Ender lives in a dangerous world where the Aliens nicknamed "buggers" have invaded the earth twice already. Every Earthlings' life is predicated by the impending third bugger invasion.

In this world of limited resources and impending doom, Ender is also a dreaded "third." In a world where there is two-child-per-family policy, being a "third" itself is a reason for derision. He is picked on by his classmates, and he is harassed by his older brother who resents him for being more talented and capable of meeting the demands of military training.

But he is a cunning, ruthless, military genius, and he is sent to Battle School to hone his strategic and tactical skills pitted against other brilliant students of Battle School. There, he excels once again by coming up with mock battle plans that surprise and impress his superiors. His team never loses a battle, no matter how it is outnumbered and disadvantaged. His successes in Battle School convince his teachers to Command School, skipping several years of additional training.

In Command School, he is isolated from the rest and interacts mostly with his mentor, the previous conflict's war hero, Mazer. He spends most of his time fighting buggers in simulation, and he is depressed by the endless simulations and isolated existence.

For his "final" test, Ender's fleet is outnumbered by the buggers by a lot, and he sacrifices most of his fighters to launch a weapon that destroyed the entire bugger planet. Ender thinks this act of rebellion will get him kicked out of Command School. Instead, he learns that the "simulations" weren't simulations. In fact, they represented the actual international fleet, buggers' fleet, and buggers' home world. Ender has won the bugger war for the humanity.

Winning the bugger war has opened a bigger can of worms on Earth where various powers fight amongst themselves for the control. Due to his capabilities, he cannot return to Earth. He decides to become a colonist on one of the buggers' worlds. There he learns that bugger invasions were based on misunderstandings and mistakes, and he finds a dormant egg of the bugger queen. In the end, he and his sister board a starship to search for a safe world to establish another bugger colony.

I skipped a big chunk of plot that involves his brother and sister, but I wanted to concentrate on Ender. I really enjoyed the strategy and tactics Ender used to win his mock battles in Battle School and Command School; however, I had problems with what finally led to Ender's entry into Battle School and Command School. His brutal beating of a classmate bully lands him not in jail, but in coveted Battle School. And when he is ambushed, he responds with overwhelming force, and it gets him promoted to Command School. In both cases, his opponents are dead. It's this rewarding of his ruthlessness that I find objectionable.

However, I did enjoy the book, and I think I would recommend the book to those who enjoy action or sci-fi.  

PS - I also read Ender's Shadow, and the same brutality, cunning, and ruthlessness are threaded in this book for a main character who is even younger (starts out at 4), and I just couldn't recommend the book. And I didn't enjoy it. It was too much, but I finished, hoping that things would change. It didn't.

Micro by Michael Crichton & Richard Preston

"In 2008, the famous naturalist David Attenborough expressed concern that modern schoolchildren could not identify common plants and insects found in nature, although previous generations identified them without hesitation.

It was ironic that this should be happening at a time when there was in the West an ever greater concern for the environment, and ever more ambitious steps proposed to protect it.

Indoctrinating children in proper environmental thought was a hallmark of the green movement, and so children were being instructed to protect something about which they knew nothing at all."

I agree with Michael Crichton - we should know or strive to know about things we try to protect.

Though we go camping, and my children play outside quite often, we don't know the names of the plants and trees growing in the nearby park. I guess this is something I should work to change. 

When I read a book, especially fiction, I want it to do one thing for me. Just one. Take me to a place or time where I would learn something new. Michael Crichton's books have consistently done that for me, and it saddens me to know that he passed away few years back.

This book follows similar Michael Crichton patterns - where main characters' survival is at stake against a form of advanced technology, surprising ways the complex of nature responds to external stimuli, and the fact that technological advances can be seen as a double-edged sword without a hilt to wield it.

~Spoiler Alert~

The president of Nanigen is interested in hiring promising graduate students and invites seven promising Ph.D. students from the east coast to check out his facility in Hawaii. There one of the grad students learns that the president murdered his brother who had been working at Nanigen as a director. To cover up his crime more completely, he shrinks the grad students and abandons them in the middle of the rain forest in Hawaii. Now, the students must fight the elements, natural predators, and the advanced micro technology that is available in the Nanigen president's arsenal to survive.

The thing I enjoyed most about the book was the minute details of nature seen from the micro inhabitants, rather than larger human view. The surface tension on a raindrop or what the forest floor would feel like to microscopic creatures were awesome. You realize that laws of nature act differently at micro levels and that in itself presents a problem to micro-sized humans.

I have always enjoyed reading Michael Crichton's books, and I'm going to miss him in my reading life very much.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who likes a good read.

The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb by Melanie Benjamin

I'm at the Dollar Tree a lot because that's where I get most of my science project materials. When I have to buy project supplies 200+ students for very little money, I go where I can get good deals on straws, toothpicks, plastic cups, etc. So, while I'm there, I look around and quite often, find a gem of a book. This is one of them.

What a surprising read! I'm not sure if I would have picked up this book on my own, but I'm glad I did.

~Spoiler Alert~

Known as Mrs. Tom Thumb, Mercy Lavinia "Vinnie" Warren Bump was born a normal infant. But she suffered a pituitary disorder, which led to her proportionate dwarfism. Her family wanted to hide her from the eyes of the world, but she longed for another, more public life which afforded wider interaction with others.

At two feet, eight inches tall, she is small, to say the least. This book highlights Vinnie's life as a part of the circus act of P.T. Barnum, but what I find even more remarkable is that she held her own against village children as a school teacher before she embarked on her circus career. The fact that she can keep a classroom of children, some of whom are much, much taller than her, is a testament to her character and her will.

So, it comes as no surprise to me that she jumps at the chance to join the circus that supposed "family cousin" is running. Sure, she still has her school and teaching, but she chafes against the strict confines of the social norms. If she stays, she's relegated to the life of spinsterhood, a woman to be pitied in the neighborhood and included when occasion called for it. 

Vinnie finally convinces her family to let her go with Colonel Wood to his "floating palace of entertainment," she's ready for an adventure, but what she finds is much more than what she expects. Even after she escapes that situation where she had been in physical danger of being raped or abused, her heart yearns for an adventure. So, SHE writes P.T. Barnum, offering her services in his circus.

There she meets P.T. Barnum and her future husband, Charles Sherwood, aka General Tom Thumb. As her circus act becomes more and more popular, especially after she marries General Tom Thumb (which preempts the coverage of the Civil War), she's in the company of presidents and royalty. However, life is anything but happy. 

Their fame wanes after the dizzying heights and they are relegated to getting back on the trains (not P.T. Barnum's private trains) and going from town to town to perform. And her even smaller sister, Mini, joins her at the circus after being her bridesmaid for the wedding. But Mini is not made of the same stuff as Vinnie, and she doesn't enjoy the public life. All she wants is to return to her normal life, but her desire to stay close to Vinnie keeps Mini at the circus.

Eventually, Mini marries another circus performer, another small-sized man, and while giving birth to a normal sized baby, both the baby and Mini die. This tragic event marks the beginning of the end of a lot of relationships she has people around her - her husband and P.T. Barnum.

This is an epic novel about a woman who refused to be defined by her size and allow others, be it family or strangers, to dictate how she should live her life.

Vinnie's sheer determination to live the life she wants is awe-inspiring, to say the least. How she thought to control a classroom of kids (kids her days may have had more respect for her position as a teacher, but it couldn't have been easy), then go on to the unknown world of performing on "floating palaces" on the Mississippi. She consistently makes bold choices, even though at times, she feels that she has no other choice.

I hope I can live my life the way Vinnie did, with a sense of adventure and determination to follow my dreams, no matter what others say.

Two thumbs up! Way, way up!

Finding Jack by Gareth Crocker

I grew up in Korea, and when I was a child, I didn't see any pet dogs in my neighborhood. However, there was a scary guard dog in our neighborhood, and it became a daily trial to walk in front of the doors of that house. I would tip-toe to the house, then run across as fast as I could because I was so scared of the dog's loud and menacing bark. 

This was the extent of my exposure to dogs until I met my husband to be. Now, we are a family of dog lovers. My favorite quote about dogs - Not everyone knows how to love a dog, but every dog knows how to love a person.

But this book shows the width and the depth of love and devotion one man feels for the dog that not only saves his life and the lives of others on patrol with him, but gives him a reason to live. The extraordinary lengths Fletcher will go to save Jack's life is crazy, stupid, and incredibly inspiring.

~Spoiler Alert~

Fletcher Carson enlists for the Vietnam War for all the wrong  reasons. He had recently lost his wife and daughter, and he didn't want to go on living. At 29, he enlists, and a friend asks him why.

"Our soldiers are being massacred in Vietnam. Most of them are still kids. They've got their whole lives ahead of them. It makes sense that people like me enlist." 

He enlists, but it doesn't mean he has a death wish. He merely goes through motions of doing what he needs to do, but he's not fully engaged in fighting or trying to stay alive until he meets Jack, a yellow Lab. A yellow Lab emerges from the trees already injured, but the soldiers are weary of such encounters. They already heard enough stories of rigged injured animals being blown up as the American soldiers tried to help them. So, immediately, their leader orders Fletcher to "take him out." When Fletcher refuses, another soldier is ordered, and he shoots the dog. The dog is gravely injured, but Fletcher carries the dog back to the base.

At the base, Jack recovers from his injuries and goes out on patrols with Fletcher's group. Many times, Jack saves the lives of Fletcher's group, and eventually the war ends with both Fletcher and Jack surviving the ordeal, even though several from his group had died in battle. By the war's end, Fletcher is convinced that Jack was sent by his dead daughter to let him know that she and her mother, Fletcher's wife are doing OK. BUT the end was anything but what Fletcher had imagined. The dogs that kept so many of the soldiers alive were considered "surplus military equipment," and the plan was to abandon them in Vietnam.

This is not an acceptable solution to Fletcher, and he tries to find a way to take Jack back home with him. But there is no other way but one. Fletcher jumps from a helicopter as it lifts off, and stay on with Jack. Now, he and Jack must find their way out of Vietnam by land (Vietnam to Laos to Thailand). It is a harrowing journey strewn with extreme dangers, both natural and man-made, but together, they overcome them all. In the end, they make it to Thailand, and finally, they are able to come to America together. He even bring out others who have helped him survive his nightmarish ordeal.

I love to learn something new from a book, and though I don't feel that I've learned anything new from this book, it was an enjoyable read. The only complaint I have about this books is that over and over, right people with right equipment came just in nick of time to rescue Fletcher and Jack, especially at the end on their journey out of Vietnam. 

I'd recommend this book to any dog lover, but anyone who is interested in an enjoyable read.

The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi

One of the teachers I work with at my daughter's elementary school introduced me to this book, and I absolutely loved it. Let me tell you why.

I immigrated to the US when I was ten-years-old from South Korea. Though, at the time, I found consolation in my false impressions that my father spoke English, but I soon found out how little English he actually spoke at the time. Due to lack of English language skills, my brothers and I were teased quite often, but more than anything, our weird names painted big, fat target on our backs.
 
My Korean name is Ryoung Ah. This is enunciated with the silent R, usually, but the correct enunciation rolls the R in front of the y. But how could the kids in my 4th grade have known? They had to make do with a jumble of letters that you just don't see in American names very often. So, my name got butchered from Rye-young-gah to R-youn-gah, to any number of unwieldy sounds. But I didn't have the courage to correct any of them. One of my brother's name is Dong Hwan, but it got changed to Ding Dong. Dong Dong, etc. The other brother's name is Kyung Tai, but it got changed to Kee-young-tie, etc.

Needless to say, changing Korean names to American names sounded like a good idea, and we did. But even in this, my path to finding an American name of my own wasn't smooth. I liked Christine. Christine Kim had a nice ring to it. So, the next day, I went to school and told another Korean girl that beginning next Monday, I was going to everyone to call me Christine. Well, that "friend" had told everyone to call her Christine after the first recess, and I was left out in the cold. I had to start my search for an American name all over again. Finally, by the end of next week, I settled on Jennifer. I don't even remember if I particularly liked the name, but I chose it because I knew no one else named Jennifer.

With all these stories behind how I ended up with my name, I enjoyed this wonderful book and loved the choice she made. I think it was the right choice for her, but I also realize that I made the right choice for me.

I am Jennifer Ryoung Ah Kim.

P.S. I thought I should add this funny story. When we first got here, my brothers and I were desperate to make friends, and wondered why it was so hard to make friends.... Well, before we started school, my Korean-American uncle taught us a phrase that supposed to keep us out of trouble.

The phrase was... I can't speak English. Please, leave me alone.

What?!? I know.

Even now, I have a hard time believing that my uncle actually taught us the phrase thinking it would solve all kinds of problems. And here we were, wondering why we couldn't make any friends.

A free book giveaway on Amazon

Hello everyone. I guess it makes sense that I should love my own book, but this one is particularly personal in regards that it's based on a dream.

I'm running a promotion on Amazon. You can download my latest book, Last Chance Lane by Jennifer R. Kim, for free on 12/3.

I'll tell you about how things are going in my next blog.

Enjoy!