The Great LOGO Adventure: Discovering LOGO on and Off the Computer [With LOGO Software and 300 LOGO Projects and Graphics]

I bought this for my fourth grade son who normally hates all school work. There is math, geometry, and logical thinking skills taught in this book. He loved it because he could do things right away and didn't have to plow through lots of boring difficult reading to get there.

I'm going to assume that anyone reading this review will want to know two things: What is Logo? How well is this book written? I'll start by saying that IMO this is the best book out there which teaches basic computer programming skills--and it just happens to be in the Logo language. (age appropriateness: kids somewhere between elementary and junior high)It comes with a CD and has LOGO software on it for Windows/Dos/Mac/etc.I have a couple of young kids and I wanted to teach some computer programming to them. I'd love to teach them some assembly and C++ but those languages are complex and huge. I figured they'd become bored -- get mired down in the rules and regulations of the language without experiencing the fun of programming. What LOGO does so well is get people programming without getting bogged down by the language. I have to add that I was under the misconception that LOGO was a whimpy-kiddie language...sure,great for teaching programming to kids, but shallow and limited. I mean, not too many universities preach LOGO, right! But LOGO is robust and extremely versatile in its own right. Go ahead, build robots, weather stations, etc.,...it makes doing these kinds of projects inviting and fun. You might misplace the TV in the house for a while!Lastly, if you want to start with a little more advanced LOGO (maybe you have a background in a comp lang already-ie. BASIC, your in HS or older)then turn to Brian Harvey's "Excellent Adventure"(wink, wink)--"Computer Science Logo Style-2nd ed"--vol 1,2,3. This series does for the older student what J. Muller does for the younger. I'm rating "The Great Logo Adventure" 4.5 stars--I don't give 5 stars because I believe there is always room for improvement; but darn if I know what to improve.

This is the only suitable book I have found for kids to learn Logo, which is a kids-oriented programming language. It is written to make it fun for young children (my daughter is 7 and is really interested). This book comes with a CD containing a complete windows implementation of logo with many cool features; also includes a DOS version and a mac version.