I had expected more of this book. Graphics is certainly one of the most exciting and stimulating aspects of many micros including the Beeb, that it should be possible to inspire many children in this direction with a dazzling compendium of example and technique. In contrast, the content of this book is very conventional, very much a text book in style with exercises at the end of each section. And there are so few illustrations!

Overcoming the initial disappointment, the book is well written, clearly with children in mind, but without being at all patronising. Indeed, many adults new to the BBC Micro might well find this book a most useful introduction to graphics. All the basic techniques are well described, though despite a whole chapter to itself, I would wish more attention had been given to animation, admittedly not always an easy topic, but one which is usually basic to the many commercial computer games that children play. There is also very little devoted to user-defined characters.

Apart from the general chapters on graphics (the heart of the book) there are also three more applications oriented ones covering business graphics, mathematical graphics and three-dimensional modelling. There is also a short chapter devoted to various graphics input and output devices, including three short joystick routines.

There is much to commend this book, and yet I feel it could have achieved so much more,=. It is a workmanlike book, ideal for many a school library! I am not sure that it will have the spontaneous appeal to the one group of people It should... Children!

Overall 77%