Gabi’s If/Then Garden

Adi and Gabi, two friends, demonstrate the fundamentals of coding. In Whitehouse’s cheerful cartoon art, the friends pick fruits and vegetables, all the while using if-then statements: “If a tomato is red, then put it in the basket. If the tomato is green, then leave it on the vine.” Karanja, a developer and designer, explains that “in coding, If/Then statements are called conditional statements.” The kids next play their own, Simon Says–like if-then game, with one acting as the programmer and the other as the computer: “If the Programmer does a jumping jack, then the Computer does a cartwheel.” When Gabi skips a cartwheel, it is explained that bugs sometimes happen in coding (in this case, Gabi’s hands got covered in squished tomato). Karanja inventively uses gardening as an accessible entry point to the world of coding. Ages 5–8. [em](Sept.) [/em]