So, You Want To Be a Coder?: The Ultimate Guide to a Career in Programming, Video Game Creation, Robotics, and More!

Gr 5–7—Bedell has packed this title with information perfect for aspiring coders. Sections cover writing code, website coders, artificial intelligence and robots, coding languages, and more. Early on, readers are asked to take an "Is Writing Code Right for Me?" quiz. Each chapter is prefaced with a cheesy but fun joke (for example, "What do you call a programmer in Scandinavia? A Nerdic."). The writing is chatty and engaging. The text is peppered with biographical spotlights of famous and influential people in the coding world—from Charles Babbage (1791–1871), the father of computing, to Henry Edward Roberts (1941–2010), the father of the personal computer. Profiles of more current people are also included, for instance, Kelly Clarke, a software engineer for NASA, and Louise Stinnett, a retired senior systems programmer, who in her profile explains what it was like to be a woman coder in the 1960s. Cartoon illustrations dot each page. Although the pictures aren't colorful, they don't hamper the overall upbeat tone. A glossary and an extensive list of resources finish off the text.