There are plenty of Basic tutors on the market and another one might seem unnecessary, but close inspection of Ian Stewart's offering dispels such thoughts.

Targeted at the teenage market, this series aims to give the young computer owner the 'kick in the pants' needed to get started with Basic. The text ranges from the mildly amusing to the hilarious, with serious instruction on how Basic keywords operate wrapped up in a mixture of goonish-cum-Kenny Everett humour.

Several characters accompany you on the journey of discovery, with such unlikely names as Ivan Nokyablokov and Carlton Q Cashsnitcher. Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are your guides to debugging and their conversations cleverly present the user with an accurate and logical picture of the way programmers speak to each other while debugging programs.

The explanations are very clear, and there are summary blocks at regular intervals reminding you of what has been said, and tests involving either program creation or problem solving. Most of the programs are essentially frivolous, but they are intended to be simple, quick and effective examples, rather than to undertake tasks, which is not the purpose of these books. Any young person would be hard-put not to learn about Basic from working through them.

I have my doubts about using them in the classroom as in Book 1 the user is instructed to print 'get stuffed!' as part of a program. One person to whom I showed the book objected, saying that she would never buy it for her child solely because of this. Extreme? Well, it depends what you are looking for, but it did seem to lower the tone of an essentially good set of books.

As far as the actual programming content is concerned it really can't be faulted - one minor ciricism is the constant use of LET which is an irrelevant keyword in BBC Basic. Otherwise, everything from STEP to STOP and DIM to DATA is covered in a thorough fashion.

Presented in a large format and clearly printed, these books represent excellent value for the teenage computer buff.