This book ranges from interesting to useful, but the whole is less than the sum of the parts.

The first section of the book is patchy. The mentions of PLATO, and two spokesmen on micros and learning, Seymour Papert and Ted Nelson, are no more than passing references - perhaps this was mere name-dropping to give Messrs. Curran and Curnow more authority. However, their discussion of the relative merits of CAL (Computer-Aided Learning) and CAI (Computer-Aided Instruction) makes some good points.

The writers' greatest authority is that they have two young children, and the acquaintance of many others who are not so small. For instance, they indicate what hardware, software and add-ons might be suitable according to age and inclination, and they point out that a disk drive system is much easier for younger children, and therefore well worth the extra cash.

The last chapter of the book assumes familiarity with Basic programming. This chapter comprises several short sample programs designed to be educational just by being used, as well as teaching, say, French vocabularly or maths tables. They include Binomial Distribution, French Fruit, Graph Plotter and File, all with a similar format: programming points, representation of screen display, line-by-line program notes and flowchart.

For all that the chapters may be worth a glance in their own right, they have an air of all being cobbled together, rather than belonging in the same book.

Harriet Arnold