Kid Codes? Baby Loves... Coding! by Ruth Spiro

Baby always follows the same steps to get from the rug to the toy box.

This pattern of steps is called an algorithm.

When Baby puts the toy train on its tracks, it has its own built-in algorithm to follow, too!

And when Baby puts the track together and sets the train switch to ON, Baby is a programmer.

Continuing their top-selling series of complex concepts for kiddies, author Ruth Spiro and artist Irene Chan's latest, Baby Loves Coding! (Baby Loves Science) (Charlesbridge, 2018), introduces the vocabulary of computer coding for the youngest tykes.

In learning the language of science, it is speculative whether the term for the process ever precedes the observation. Most babies derive great pleasure in discovering gravity--giggling as they drop their toys, their spoons, and sometimes their cereal bowls off their high chairs, all without any knowledge of the term for that phenomenon, but it is also sometimes true that having a name for something abstract makes it easier to understand--terms like democracy or trope or centrifugal force do help organize observations into a cogent concept, and that is what author Spiro is trying to do in her newest board book in the Baby Loves Science series. Irene Chan's soft and warm illustrations have considerable charm and illustrate their topic about as well as can be expected.

It's going to be a while before tots try to program, but when they do, they'll have the right words ready for it!

A few of the erudite titles in this series are Baby Loves Gravity! (Baby Loves Science), Baby Loves Aerospace Engineering! (Baby Loves Science), and Baby Loves Quarks! (Baby Loves Science).