There is a plethora of local and international books written for children. If we want to nurture a reading culture in South Africa, we need to get youngsters reading – whether it’s an actual book, the newspaper or on a device. So, to mark National Book Week we will begin a series of book reviews written by young readers. Read them, get your children to read them, and let’s get more children enjoying a good book.
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Minecraft: Beginner’s Handbook
Markus Alexeji Persson and Jens Bergensten are really good Minecraft players. In this book they give you tips on how and where to start playing this game.
It can be quite confusing. Especially for adults like my mom and dad.
I didn’t find the book very helpful but that is because I have been playing Minecraft for a long time.
But if you haven’t played Minecraft before then you should start your book collection with this one. You will learn a lot of tricks and skills needed for the game. It will teach you how to find resources, make a shelter, craft tools, armour and weapons, and protect yourself from monsters. – Viaan Naicker
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Minecraft: Combat Handbook
Now this was an amazing book.
Mobs are creatures, like spiders and zombies. They attack you in your world and try to kill you. You also have to watch out for enemy players when you play Minecraft.
This book teaches you all the tricks to defeat different mobs and enemies in the game. You can learn how to build a fort, make armour and weapons, set traps and defeat enemies in combat.
The handbook tells you how to identify a mob and its strength. If you know this you can position yourself to attack a mob in different ways so that you can get maximum damage.
To survive in a Minecraft world you have to have a good combat strategy against different mobs and enemies.
This book will help you with this. I think anyone who plays Minecraft should read this book. – Viaan Naicker
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Minecraft: Construction Handbook
The Minecraft Construction Handbook is great because it teaches you how to build cool objects like houses, gardens, floating islands and lots more.
This book helped me a lot because I was not a very good builder and it gave me tips and tricks to build cool stuff.
I built a house this weekend and it was the best one I have ever built.
If you love Minecraft like I do and want to learn about building some really cool stuff, then get this handbook. It has taught me to be a good builder, so it will do the same for you. – Saskiya Naicker
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Minecraft: Redstone Handbook
In Minecraft all stones are mined in different places and all these stones have different uses.
Sandstone is used to build houses and other objects in a world.
Redstone is mined in caves that you find in your Minecraft world.
It is very important because it is used to power things.
It is like electricity.
If I wanted to build a trap, I would need redstone to power it to make it work.
The Redstone Handbook tells you what redstone looks like and where you can find it in the caves.
It also gives you tips on how to use redstone so your traps and machines can work well.
Then you can keep icky creatures away and you can live safely in your world.
I built a really nice door for my house that can open automatically – thanks to redstone.
There is also a part of the book where you can see creations by the best redstone builders in Minecraft.
This is my favourite handbook. – Saskiya Naicker
* Minecraft Handbooks are published by Penguin Random House