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I have yet to meet a kid who doesn’t enjoy playing Minecraft. However, sometimes, as a parent, I do wish they’d spend some of their Minecraft time reading instead. Luckily for both kids and parents, there are tons of amazing Minecraft books for kids out there. These books will get your child reading while also scratching that Minecraft itch.

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Some of the books in this list are engrossing narratives set in the world of Minecraft. Others are amazing resources for helping kids make the most of their time in-game. And there are even some coding books for kids if they’re interested in learning the basics of coding using Redstone or building mods.

No matter where your kids are on their Minecraft journey, there’s definitely a book on this list that will be great for them!

Minecraft Books for Kids

1. Minecraft – The Island
2. Minecraft Woodsword Chronicles
3. Minecraft for Beginners
4. Minecraft Epic Bases
5. Bite-Size Builds
6. Minecraft Maps
7. Minecraft: Blockopedia: Updated Edition
8. Minecraft Survival: Updated
9. The Minecraft Annual
10. Minecrafter Engineer: Must-Have Starter Farms
11. The Ultimate Player’s Guide to Minecraft
12. The Ultimate Guide to Mastering Circuit Power!
13. Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Minecraft Mods Programming

The Island was the first of Minecraft’s official books and it remains one of my favorite Minecraft books. The main character appears on an island in a Minecraft world with no memory of his past life nor any knowledge of how to survive in this world. He has to discover the world from scratch, just as a new player would when they load up the game!

It’s a great read on its own, but if you’re looking for even more fun, you should check out the audiobook version. It’s read by none other than Jack Black. He really nails the narration and turns an already great book into something spectacular!

My kids listened to it several times, and I got sucked in every time.

The author already released a sequel for The Island called The Mountain, and a third book, The Village, will come out later this year.

The Woodsword Chronicles begin in a similar way to The Island. Five friends are mysteriously transported into the Minecraft world, and must use what they know to survive and thrive! However, the Woodsword Chronicles are a bit easier to read, as they aim at a slightly younger age group.

The 6 Woodsword Chronicles books follow these friends from their first forays into the Minecraft world until their final showdown. Plenty to keep a young Minecrafter busy reading!

These are fun books and an amazing way of getting younger Minecraft fans into reading.

Some of the main themes of Minecraft are exploration, discovery, and creativity. At first, Minecraft’s complete lack of tutorials or a larger plot reflected these concepts. It made the game more difficult, in some ways, while allowing individual players the freedom to set their own goals. But it also led to a need for external resources for some players. These players wanted a bit more guidance on what they should be doing to get the most out of Minecraft.

Minecraft for Beginners is an official step-by-step guide to help new players “survive and thrive” in the game. It covers beginning concepts, like how to find food and crafting materials, building a shelter, and surviving basic combat.

This isn’t the right book for experienced players. However, it provides a solid foundation for Minecrafting kids who are just getting started.

One of the truly amazing things that you can do in Minecraft is build huge, detailed bases where you can recover between adventures. Epic Bases is a photographic collection of Minecraft bases built by a guild of expert builders. Plus it has top tips and tricks for creating a stunning base of your own!

These bases are an incredible testament to the skill and dedication of the players who built them. If you’re looking for some inspiration for building an epic base of your own, this book is easily one of the best resources of its kind out there.

The funny thing about huge, highly-detailed Minecraft bases is that they are big. Like, really, really big. That has a tendency to be daunting for players who don’t have experience with building things on that scale.

That’s why these Bite-Size Builds books are so amazing. Each book takes some fun and practical builds and breaks them down into easy-to-follow building chunks. It’s similar to how LEGO sets do their build instructions, but with a bit more freedom to stray from the directions and still have things turn out awesome!

There are currently three different books in this series for kids, each with over 20 different builds to try out.

The Minecraft world is HUGE, and every map has a wide variety of biomes to explore. Each biome has unique features, including different mobs, plants, and even weather!

This Minecraft Maps book explores each of the game’s different biomes and gives tips and tricks for getting the most out of each one. The book itself reads like a journal of an intrepid explorer looking to discover everything the world has to offer. And the illustrations are fantastic!

It is a few years old at this point (2019). Many of the newer biomes aren’t represented. I, for one, am hoping that that means that a second edition will soon be on its way.

In the real world, if we didn’t have access to the internet and wanted to learn about something specific, we would turn to our nearest encyclopedia. In the Minecraft world, players can turn to this book.

The Blockopedia is an impressively hefty book, offering up over 300 pages of information on different types of blocks. Its pages feature in-depth information on most of the blocks in the game. This means it is one of the most complete Minecraft reference books you can get anywhere! It does not, however, have specific information on the different mobs in the game. It also lacks information on any of the blocks released in the last couple of years since it came out.

That said, there aren’t any other books out there that do a better job! The Blockopedia is a great choice for any Minecraft fan looking for an offline resource.

One of the best parts of Minecraft is the feeling of adventure that comes from playing through survival mode. From the struggle to find shelter to protect you during your first night all the way through defeating the End Dragon, survival mode offers up challenge after challenge for adventurers brave enough to face them.

And this updated guide from the Official Minecraft Team helps you to take them all on.

It covers every topic you’ll need, with details on hostile mobs, potion making, trading with friendly villagers, and more. But if there is something else you need, there are 3 more books in the series to guide you. These cover Redstone engineering, advanced combat techniques, and creative mode, for when you need a break from surviving.

Together, these 4 books form one of the most comprehensive collections of tips and tricks that you can find!

Though not technically a book, the yearly Minecraft Annual definitely earns its place on this list.

Each annual edition is full of fun Minecraft trivia, tips for playing, and features on the most recent updates. Since most Minecraft reference books tend to be from a couple years ago or more, that last bit can be particularly helpful! They also include build and survival challenges, game ideas for playing Minecraft with friends, and more!

In between battling dangerous monsters and exploring abandoned mines, Minecraft players also have to find resources to keep them in fighting shape. Often, this means making a farm.

Especially in the early game, creating a farm that provides a source of food can be the key to success. This book is filled to bursting with farm builds that make growing food a breeze, leaving more time to adventure.

Many of the farms in this book are simple enough for beginners, which is great. But the later farms take full advantage of one of the most complex and useful features in the game. Redstone! Luckily, the diagrams do a great job of explaining each build and serve as a great introduction to Redstone mechanics.

If you like the idea of a book that will help you make automated farms for growing food and gathering resources, but also want a guide to help you through everything else Minecraft could throw at you, this unofficial player’s guide might just be the book you’re looking for.

The Ultimate Player’s Guide to Minecraft covers everything from a player’s first night, to elaborate Redstone creations. And, for Minecrafters playing on the Java version of the game, it has a decent guide to installing and using mods as a way of unlocking even more functionality!

If you’re not familiar with mods, they are bundles of code that can be added to a Minecraft game to add new features and functionality. And if you know how to code (or want to learn how to code in Minecraft), it’s even possible to build your own!

Mods aside, Redstone circuits are easily one of the most complex parts of Minecraft. In large part, that’s because Redstone mimics real-world electrical wiring systems. A good Redstone engineer can build anything from a door that opens automatically to a fully functioning calculator! But it takes a lot of patience and know-how to get there.

The Ultimate Guide to Mastering Circuit Power dives into the Redstone deep end and helps players understand all the different Redstone elements in the game, as well as giving ideas for things to do with them.

This is not a book for Minecraft beginners, but it is an amazing resource for players who want to master Redstone. And, because of how closely Redstone mirrors electric circuits, they’ll be sure to gain some real-world knowledge along the way!

If you have a bit of computer know-how, installing a Minecraft mod is a simple enough process. However, coding a Minecraft mod is another matter entirely!

Working on a specific project helps kids learn to code far better than simply trying to piece together different concepts from a book or forum. A Minecraft Mod makes for an excellent project. That’s because making mods stretches kids to experiment with new concepts and coding languages and it gives them a product at the end that they can enjoy.

There aren’t a lot of great books on coding Minecraft Mods out there. And many of the ones that do exist are either outdated or aimed at more experienced coders. An Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Minecraft Mods Programming is one of the few that does a decent job explaining the process for coders with zero modding knowledge all the way up to building a functioning mod.

It’s a good book, but if you ask me, I would recommend coding classes with a live instructor over a book 100% of the time.

Learn to Code in Minecraft

Apart from being a ton of fun, Minecraft can be a great motivational tool for sparking a kid’s interest in learning to code. But the learning process is so much better when done as part of a group!

CodeWizardsHQ has live instructors ready to help your kids learn to code. They even host week-long Minecraft summer camps where kids can learn complex concepts like computational thinking and computer logic while practicing with Redstone and other Minecraft staples.

It’s a ton of fun, and could even be the first step on your kid’s path to a career in coding!

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