Finding materials that teach kids how to program is difficult. But now, rather than using a click-and-drag game generator or a dumbed-down kiddie programming language, kids can use Playing with Python to learn real programming skills while using a real programming language. Python is powerful but has a very gentle learning curve, which makes it a perfect introductory language: This book is for geeks-in-training and future hackers.

Playing with Python isn't designed to teach kids how to make professional video games, but to teach computer programming to non-programmers by generating simple and fun games like Tic Tac Toe, Hangman, and Reversi. Author Al Sweigart's explanations are clear and concise, and he includes complete source code for each game, as well as step-by-step explanations of how it works. Instead of trying to fit every aspect of Python programming into a thick and complicated manual, Playing with Python teaches readers a serious programming language while making it seriously fun.

Albert Sweigart is a Python software developer and an author with a particular interest in teaching kids how to program. He was born in Houston, Texas and went to school at The University of Texas at Austin. He currently lives in San Francisco and maintains a blog at http://coffeeghost.net.