Minecraft for Beginners Review

June 25, 2019 at 7:40pm
By Jason Stettner

I continue my ventures of reading the Minecraft books that aim to provide an educational asset, and this one is very interesting. This is Minecraft for Beginners and it really is literally that. This is a perfect book for the younger audience as it’s larger than the more compact books and is largely image based. Not to say there isn’t a lot of reading to be had, but it is more image based and then accompanied by text in its setup.

This might also be great for a parent to discuss Minecraft with a kid, understanding the basics of the game with your child. Things start out with a general idea as to what the game is, and then it gives you the control schemes. It then let’s you know about your character and the dimensions that make the worlds up. There’s a lot in the middle, but I want to briefly chat about the end of this book which contains a lovely Minecraft dictionary. It gives you an idea what certain terms mean if you’re curious and really makes this a more compelling educational asset.

The middle portion, or well meat of the book covers a ton. You get full details on your first day, the types of environments you’ll visit and what mobs (creatures) you’ll meet while playing. There are full details on what you get from the critters, and their behaviors. It’s quite in-depth and useful.

This is a hardcover book that’s also apparently available as an eBook. For the purposes of this review, I was provided with the hardcover version and will be basing my judgment based on it. It’s a nice thickness, and there are a fair amount of pages present here. The imagery is large, and bright, capturing the game authentically.

The author really knows Minecraft as I’ve seen a number of their works in book form. The pages are sort of a blow up of what you’d get in the smaller guide books. You see large images, and then text blocks to accompany them. There will be small hint bubbles littered throughout with additional neat information. The pages are well setup, to the point and they really don’t waste space. It’s a very aesthetically pleasing display quite honestly.

Aside from the regular pages I’ve described, you’ll also occasionally be greeted with full page images that look great. You’ll see crafting displays to understand how to make things and they go over a number of essential items which is excellent. I should also mention that this focuses on the Bedrock version of the game, basically available on all platforms.

The Conclusion

The Minecraft for Beginners book delivers a quality look into starting out and understanding the core mechanics involved. This is perfect for the younger audience, or those that are older that want to teach it/understand it alongside them.

It provides large scale images, easy to read text and many tips to help you out. You’ll learn a lot if you’ve never experienced the game before, or just want to understand the core mechanics and mobs (creatures) better. It goes over the environments, the types of places you can visit and how to get started properly.

It even has a nice start off point for when you want to get out there and explore without the book guiding you. I was pleasantly surprised by this one, I thought it would be basic but there’s actually a lot of care and depth within these pages that I’m sure will be helpful.

Minecraft for Beginners Book Review
Author: Stephanie Milton
ISBN: 9781984820860
Review Copy Provided by Penguin Random House Canada

Rating Overall: 9.0