The computer science department is pleased to share our suggested fiction and non-fiction Computer Science books as part of our ‘Read-Write-Code’ campaign in support of BSAK’s commitment to raise literacy standards. Title: Hello Ruby: Adventures in Coding Hardcover – October 6, 2015 By: Linda Liukas Recommended: Year 6-7 Library: Yes Description: As Ruby stomps around her world making new friends, including the Wise Snow Leopard, the Friendly Foxes, and the Messy Robots, kids will be introduced to the fundamentals of computational thinking, like how to break big problems into small ones, and think outside the box through storytelling. Then, these basic concepts at the core of coding and programming will be reinforced through fun playful exercises and activities that encourage exploration and creativity. Title: Lauren Ipsum By: Carlos Bueno Recommended: Year 7-9
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Library: Yes
Description: A story about computer science and other improbable things. Laurie is lost in Userland. She knows where she is, or where she's going, but maybe not at the same time. The only way out is through Jargon-infested swamps, gates guarded by perfect logic, and the perils of breakfast time at the Philosopher's Diner. With just her wits and the help of a lizard who thinks he's a dinosaur, Laurie has to find her own way home. Title: Minecat Book 1: A Feline Minecraft Adventure By: Pt Evans Recommended: Year 7-9
Amazon
Description: Spike is an indoor cat who's been watching Jason play Minecraft for years. When one afternoon - SWOOSH! - Spike gets sucked into Jason's game. But Spike isn't happy with the world Jason has created and makes some big changes of his own. (Jason didn't need those emeralds, did he?) It doesn't take long before Spike goes from ocelot bait to king of the jungle.
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Title: Trouble in Zombie-town a Minecraft Adventure, By: Mark Cheverton Recommended: Year 7-9 Description: Gameknight999 was sucked into the world of Minecraft when one of his father’s inventions went haywire. Trapped inside the game, the former griefer learned the error of his ways. He transformed into a heroic warrior and defeated powerful endermen, ghasts, and dragons to save the world of Minecraft and his NPC friends that live in it.
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Library: Yes
Library: Yes Amazon
Range of Mindcraft books: * Invasion of the Overworld: * A Tale of Friends, Enemies and Minecraft * Confronting the Dragon * The Lair of doom Title: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School By: Jeff Kinney Recommended: Year 7 Description: "Life was better in the old days. Or was it? That's the question Greg Heffley is asking as his town voluntarily unplugs and goes electronics-free. But modern life has its conveniences, and Greg isn't cut out for an old-fashioned world. With tension building inside and outside the Heffley home, will Greg find a way to survive?" Title: Computational Fairy Tales By: Jeremy Kubica Recommended: Year 6-7
Library: Yes Amazon
Library: Yes Amazon kindle
Library: Yes Description: Have you ever thought that computer science should include more dragons and wizards? Computational Fairy Tales introduces principles of computational thinking, illustrating high-level computer science concepts, the motivation behind them, and their application in a non-computer-fairy taledomain. The goal of this book is not to provide comprehensive coverage of each topic, but rather to provide a high level overview of the breadth and excitement of computer science. Title: The Truth Game By: Anna Staniszewski Recommended: Year 9-11 Description: Rachel Lee thought that ninth grade would be different. That she would be different. Holding hands with Evan in the hallway, future president of the baking club... but it feels like she and BFF Marisol are drifting apart. At first, Rachel thought the Truth Game app would be a great way to do a little anonymous confessing, to see how others handle their friendship fails. But when her painful truths become public, Rachel's in danger of losing her best friend – permanently. Title: Messy By: Heather Cocks, Jessica Morgan Recommended: Year 9-11 Description: Brooke wants to start a blog revealing the inner-workings of Hollywood in order to be in the spotlight but has no time to write one, so she enlists the help of a ghost-writer, seventeen-year-old Max McCormack, who needs the money but not the hassle.
Amazon kindle
Library: Yes Amazon kindle
Library: Yes Amazon kindle
Title: Identity Theft By: Carolyn Keene Recommended: Year 8-10
Library: Yes
Description: In the second book in the exciting Identity Mystery Trilogy, Nancy and her friends search for a hacker from an Internet community called BetterLife. Can they unveil the hacker's true identity before Nancy's private legal files are made public?
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Title: Googled: The End of the World As We Know It Paperback By: Ken Auletta Recommended: Year 9-13 Description: Just eleven years old, Google has profoundly transformed the way we live and work-we've all been Googled. Esteemed media writer Ken Auletta uses the story of Google's rise to explore the future of media at large. This book is based on the most extensive cooperation ever granted a journalist, including access to closed-door meetings and interviews with industry legends, including Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Marc Andreessen, and media guru "Coach" Bill Campbell. Title: Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution By: Recommended: Year 9-13
Library: Yes
Description: This 25th anniversary edition of Steven Levy's classic book traces the exploits of the computer revolution's original hackers -- those brilliant and eccentric nerds from the late 1950s through the early '80s who took risks, bent the rules, and pushed the world in a radical new direction. With updated material from noteworthy hackers such as Bill Gates, Mark Zukerberg, Richard Stallman, and Steve Wozniak, Hackers is a fascinating story that begins in early computer research labs and leads to the first home computers. Title: Fight for the Future By: Ryan Hunter, Jeff Norton Recommended: Year 9-11
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Description: Even virtual worlds need real heroes Jonah Delacroix can't stand the real world, so he lives most of his life inside a global computer-based virtual world called the Metasphere, where everyone is represented by an avatar. When he discovers the avatar of his dead father, and assumes his online identity, a series of events are unleashed that compel Jonah to race across the real world with a secret society to protect the freedom of all mankind. Title: The Dead are Rising By: Jeff Norton Recommended: Year 9-11
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Description: The Changsphere offers a safe haven for the Uploaded, and with more processing power than the Southern Corner could ever offer, the Uploaded begin to grow, develop, and yearn to be alive again. With the Changsphere offering competition to the Metasphere, more and more avatars take up residency in it. But the Uploaded begin to prey on live avatars, infecting them, and their users, with their personalities and becoming reborn in the real world. Title: Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal By: Nick Bilton Recommended: Year 9-13
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Description: Despite all the coverage of Twitter’s rise, Nick Bilton of The New York Times is the first journalist to tell the full story—a gripping drama of betrayed friendships and highstakes power struggles. The four founders—Evan Williams, Biz Stone, Jack Dorsey, and Noah Glass—made a dizzyingly fast transition from ordinary engineers to wealthy celebrities. They fought each other bitterly for money, influence, publicity, and control as Twitter grew larger and more powerful. Ultimately they all lost their grip on it.
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Amazon
Library: Yes
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Library: Yes
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Library: Yes
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Library: Yes
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Title: Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different By: Recommended: Year 9-13 Library: Yes Description: "Your time is limited. . . . have the courage to follow your heart and intuition."--Steve Jobs. From the start, his path was never predictable. Steve Jobs was given up for adoption at birth, dropped out of college after one semester, and at the age of twenty, created Apple in his parents' garage with his friend Steve Wozniack. Then came the core and hallmark of his genius--his exacting moderation for perfection, his counterculture life approach, and his level of taste and style that pushed all boundaries. Title: Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker By: Kevin Mitnick Recommended: Year 10-13
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Library: Yes Description: Kevin Mitnick was the most elusive computer break-in artist in history. He accessed computers and networks at the world's biggest companies--and however fast the authorities were, Mitnick was faster, sprinting through phone switches, computer systems, and cellular networks. He spent years skipping through cyberspace, always three steps ahead and labeled unstoppable. But for Kevin, hacking wasn't just about technological feats-it was an old fashioned confidence game that required guile and deception to trick the unwitting out of valuable information. Title: Sleepover Girls: Ashley Goes Viral By: Jennifer Jones, Recommended: Year 6-7
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Library: Yes
Description: Ashley has lately branched out from her tween fashion blog into fashion YouTube videos, and when one of her videos is featured on a major teen website she becomes an overnight online celebrity, and all the "cool" girls at school take notice. Title: Cryptogram Chaos: A Virtual Reality Adventure By: Linda Covella Recommended: Year 9-11
Amazon
Description: In the ultimate virtual reality game created by 14-year-old computer whiz Cody, kids race cars, fly, bungee jump, eat all the treats they want, inhabit powerful avatars, and more. But The Cryptogram Connection becomes "cryptogram chaos" when an evil presence takes control of the game and Cody must save the gamers from disaster. Title: Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet By: Recommended: Year 11-13
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Description: Twenty five years ago, it didn't exist. Today, twenty million people worldwide are surfing the Net. Where Wizards Stay Up Late is the exciting story of the pioneers responsible for creating the most talked about, most influential, and most far-reaching communications breakthrough since the invention of the telephone. In the 1960's, when computers where regarded as mere giant calculators, J.C.R. Licklider at MIT saw them as the ultimate communications devices. With Defense Department funds, he and a band of visionary computer whizzes began work on a nationwide, interlocking network of computers.
Library: Yes
Library: Yes
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Title: The Chip : How Two Americans Invented the Microchip and Launched a Revolution By: T.R. Reid Recommended: Year 11-13 Library: Yes Description: Barely fifty years ago a computer was a gargantuan, vastly expensive thing that only a handful of scientists had ever seen. The world’s brightest engineers were stymied in their quest to make these machines small and affordable until the solution finally came from two ingenious young Americans. Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce hit upon the stunning discovery that would make possible the silicon microchip, a work that would ultimately earn Kilby the Nobel Prize for physics in 2000. In this completely revised and updated edition of The Chip, T.R. Reid tells the gripping adventure story of their invention and of its growth into a global information industry. This is the story of how the digital age began.
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