Computational Fairy Tales Paperback – June 26, 2012

Son who is into coding and robotics (9 years old) LOVES this book, he already knew Python language and he said he had always wanted to know binary and that this taught him binary, he is loving it and reading it over and over. You learn so much better and retain the info when you are having fun learning. This book is SO fun for him, he loves it and can't put it down, he is on his 5th time reading it right now I think. It's a fairy tale adventure that actually teaches, I don't get any of it at all (though I haven't tried to read it, but his knowledge is way more than mine) but he is trying to teach me code based off examples in the book. There are some diagrams inside which he loves and he tries to use to teach me. It is a great story according to him, he absolutely loves it, he can't wait till the author writes more!! (and he insists there will be more because he says it was left open ended, there should be a second book about more complex things and to finish off the fairy tale according to him :) so author if you are listening, please write a part 2 haha!

I'm not a Computer Scientist. I've heard the phrase Computer Science bandied about in general conversations but when push came to shove I really didn't know what it meant. I now know that a large part of computer science is organizing data in such a way that it is easy to store and easy to access. The author is able to introduce the uninitiated to a glimpse of Computational Science. He does this by introducing us to Princess Ann who takes us on an adventure through the kingdom ruled by her father, King Fredrick. The kingdom is facing a crisis and the King's daughter has been charged with the mission of saving the realm. The book is likeable and funny as she faces different characters and situations along the way. Each character and situation progresses through concepts of data collection and dissemination. Each situation shows that data can be collected in different ways to suit the needs of the collector and that the data can be disseminated in many different ways, again to supply results to the user in the most efficient way. The author has been able to take the mystery out of many computational concepts that novices to the science and curious readers may find otherwise daunting.

I wanted to love this book. The description reminds me strongly of the fictional Young Lady's Illustrated Primer from Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age, and I'm a big fan of anything that attempts to teach people more about computer science, especially anything aimed at younger readers.As a computer scientist myself, this was a fun read. I didn't learn anything I didn't already know, but I didn't expect to. The storyline that glues everything together is moderately fun, albeit a bit simple and unsurprising. The explanations of algorithms are quite good, and fairly easy to understand. My problem with the book, however, is that it doesn't seem to know who it is targeting.As an introduction to computer science for a child or young adult, the book progresses far too quickly through the topics, covering a lot of material in a very short time. It goes over each concept just once, leaving far too many things assumed, and provides no time for revision and absorption before moving on to the next topic. As a book for older readers, the language and storyline are very basic and straightforward, which leaves me wondering just who the target audience are.Fleshed out and improved, this book would make a marvelous introductory text for young people interested in learning about computer science. As it is, though, the book suffers in a no-man's-land between educational and entertaining, making it difficult to determine who would benefit from reading it.

I am very impressed with Mr. Kubicka's ability to come up with a a story that presents puzzles for a fairytale princess to solve, which are actually CS problems in disguise. The descriptions of the algorithms in very concrete terms seems like they would be understandable to a young reader.I think this book would be a good tool for encouraging curiosity on the part of young readers into learning more about computer science. Also, I enjoyed reading it myself and I'm an adult professional software developer, so maybe a parent reading this book at the same time might learn something too. :)If you have a young reader who likes puzzles and fantasy stories, they might really enjoy this book.

If you know a middle school computer science teacher, this is the perfect addition to their curriculum. If you have a 8-12 year old who is interested in coding, this is a great beginning. The story is great and the lessons are engaging! I originally got this book because I am 60+ years old and work with coders all the time. This gave me the vocabulary and the concepts to make that work go so much better. It really worked!

My daughter (11 years) and I (who happen to spend a lot of my working hours programming) have been reading this book. It is just great. The story itself is captivating, and the short snippets where the computer science background/relation is given is amazing. Notions from linked lists to sorting are all amazingly explained. Even if you do not care about Computer Science at all, this book is really fun to read. And given its kindle price, this is really a bargain. We are looking forward to reading more from Kubica.

As a Senior undergrad CS major, this book introduced the basic concepts of Computer Science from my first course to the last. I would recommend this book to anyone who is a CS student or looking to become one.Although the book may be a bit complicated and hard to understand for someone new to the field, it does a great job of explaining hard to grasp concepts of CS.

Jeremy Kubica's work is masterful. These stories are fun for little children as bedtime stories, memorable for teaching computational thinking skills, and entertaining enough to entertain my AP Computer Science Principles kids. I would not have thought such a balance was popular, by Kubica pulls it off.

My 11 year old son really enjoyed this book. He is very intocomputers and easily understood all these tales

As a software developer, I enjoyed some of this book, but felt it didn't live up to its potential. It's a very interesting concept: to turn mastering of algorithmic concepts into a quest narrative. However, what it ends up as is a collection of short stories, each illustrating one algorithmic concept, and loosely tied together into a narrative arc. And I enjoyed the overall narrative arc, with the start and end being particularly good: a princess trained in computational thinking is sent off to defeat a prophesied darkness, and ends up overcoming it with an unexpected and advanced algorithmic technique (no spoilers), but becomes aware that this is just the first of many problems which will need solving with computational thinking. There are also some good insights in the middle: I particularly enjoyed the section about good and bad commenting practices. However, many of the stories in between are comparatively short and contribute little or nothing to the narrative arc. Yes, they illustrate good CS principles and algorithms, but they feel contrived and trivial. I wanted both good stories and interesting takes on CS principles, and this book doesn't really give both.

This is a fun loving book that aims to introduce some relatively simple computing ideas through the story of a princess named Ann who is being sent on a quest to save the kingdom from “the darkness”. You follow Ann’s adventures through this algorithm-centred kingdom in which each chapter is a new concept which depends on which section you are currently reading.It has five different sections:>The Start of a Quest>Data Structures>Algorithms>Graphs>Computational ThinkingI particularly liked this book because it was written so simply if you take out the algorithms the stripped down story is one of a children’s book, which made it very light-hearted and fun to see algorithms affect the characters and how they learnt about them. This book just made me feel like a child not only due to its style, but because it had a moral to the story which I thought was that algorithms are everywhere and we should utilise them more in our day to day lives.If you are looking to learn from this book, I would only recommend to people who haven’t studied computer science before as it is very simple to understand the concepts presented and shows a practical application of each concept. Although I wouldn't rely on this as you first encounter of these algorithms it may add another level of understanding for any beginners. If you want to just read a cute little book and already have knowledge of some simple algorithms I would definitely recommend this book to you as a light read! This book may be too childish for anyone looking to learn a lot from it and some people may find this book patronising due to its simplicity, it doesn’t talk in depth any single algorithm but just introduces the idea of algorithms as a whole and explains how you pick a more efficient algorithm for different tasks and gives some pretty silly examples.In conclusion, I really enjoyed this book because it was a childish story that you had to access only by understanding the algorithms mentioned in the book. But it is definitely not a book to read if you are expecting to get a lot of in-depth information and explanations.

As a future computer science student, I decided to read this book and what a great decision that was! It explains a wide range of fundamental concepts within computing clearly and concisely through short, humorous stories. It is beautifully written; not lacking in detail yet completely approachable for someone with absolutely no prior knowledge of computer science.It is incredible how engaging a read this is. The first section discusses the fundamentals of programming: variables, conditional statements, loops etc. Despite having prior knowledge of this all, I found this part to be a thoroughly enjoyable read. Graph theory is a topic introduced later in the book; even that is interesting and engaging despite being the same material covered in some incredibly boring A level Maths lessons.

The book is mostly a collection of short explanations of various computer science principles - mostly algorithms. Most of the explanations are really good, and uses metaphors from the fairytale (or medieval quest) to help the reader understand them, rather than resorting to computer code and mathematics. That is a good thing, and I think that the chapters taken individually could really help when learning computer science (or help me as a teacher of computer science, to explain things to the students).The fairytale element isn't as pervasive as I could have wished for - actually I would have liked the book better if there was more to the storyline about the princess and her quest, and perhaps a little fewer algorithms to explain.But it certainly has a lot of quite good metaphors - and I would recommend it to anyone looking for non-mathematical explanations to computer science principles. Don't read the whole book as a story, but select a chapter here or there to learn more!