What Parents Should Know
Lots of screen shots aid visual learners, and the
illustrations add humor to the instructions. Kids enjoy
customizing their computers with tips gleaned from this
book.
Common Sense Media Review
Computer users familiar with Microsoft Windows 95 will
benefit most from this computer guide--the book assumes a
certain skill level and that users know their way around a
computer's control panel, toolbar, and accessories.
While the book's breadth of ideas ensures that most readers will get something out of it, it could be more user friendly. The first section, on computer art, is dominated by activities using Windows 95's Paint program. The author assumes readers know how to access Paint, and while it's fairly easy to do so, project #37 actually spells it out. Why not tell readers up front? Likewise, the hardware and software required to do the projects is detailed in the last chapter, but you don't know that until you read to the end.
The introduction states that projects are generally presented according to level of difficulty. But is building a Web page (project #78) really easier than e-mailing (project #81), even slightly? And isn't making emoticons--funny punctuation-mark faces--(project #21) much simpler than (project #1), drawing in Paint? :-)
101 THINGS is a slight book--less substantial than books in IDG's ... for Dummies or Que's Idiot's Guide to ... series--but it has a place in a child's developing computer-book collection. It's jargon-free, and the activities, from making music-cassette covers to morphing photographs, will appeal to kid's interests. One eleven-year-old boy was immediately drawn to the project on cartoon design.
Common Sense Media is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing information to help parents make media and entertainment choices for their families.
