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The Big Book of Small Python Projects: 81 Easy Practice Programs Kindle Edition
If you’ve mastered basic Python syntax and you’re ready to start writing programs, you’ll find The Big Book of Small Python Projects both enlightening and fun. This collection of 81 Python projects will have you making digital art, games, animations, counting pro- grams, and more right away. Once you see how the code works, you’ll practice re-creating the programs and experiment by adding your own custom touches.
These simple, text-based programs are 256 lines of code or less. And whether it’s a vintage screensaver, a snail-racing game, a clickbait headline generator, or animated strands of DNA, each project is designed to be self-contained so you can easily share it online.
You’ll create:
• Hangman, Blackjack, and other games to play against your friends or the computer
• Simulations of a forest fire, a million dice rolls, and a Japanese abacus
• Animations like a virtual fish tank, a rotating cube, and a bouncing DVD logo screensaver
• A first-person 3D maze game
• Encryption programs that use ciphers like ROT13 and Vigenère to conceal text
If you’re tired of standard step-by-step tutorials, you’ll love the learn-by-doing approach of The Big Book of Small Python Projects. It’s proof that good things come in small programs!
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherNo Starch Press
- Publication dateJune 29, 2021
- File size2.3 MB
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Editorial Reviews
Review
—Naomi Ceder, Fellow of the Python Software Foundation
"Al Sweigart presents fun programs, inspiring learners to tweak them. That's how I learned to program: tinkering with examples from books and magazines. It works!"
–Luciano Ramalho, Technical Principal at ThoughtWorks and author of Fluent Python
"Whether you're new to Python or want to exercise your coding brain, I recommend The Big Book of Small Python Projects to spark your thinking. Both the 'big' and the 'small' in the title are accurate. There are a lot of projects in this book, but most code takes up only a page or two. That makes it a fun reference book to get you into the flow or kick off a session in your terminal."
—Adam DuVander, Founder, EveryDeveloper
"This book is excellent for beginners to Python and a great reference book for programmers who are well versed in programming. I'm happy to give this book 5 out of 5 stars!"
—Greg Walters, Full Circle Magazine
"This book is packed with fun and easy programs, I can confirm."
—BC Gain, @bcamerongain
About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : B08FH9FV7M
- Publisher : No Starch Press
- Accessibility : Learn more
- Publication date : June 29, 2021
- Language : English
- File size : 2.3 MB
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Not Enabled
- Print length : 418 pages
- ISBN-13 : 978-1718501256
- Page Flip : Enabled
- Best Sellers Rank: #746,268 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #81 in Object Oriented Design
- #106 in Open Source Programming
- #111 in Software Development (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Al Sweigart is a software developer and tech book author living in Houston. He has written several programming books for beginners, including Automate the Boring Stuff with Python. His books are freely available under a Creative Commons license at his website https://inventwithpython.com.
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The Big Lab Guide of Small Group Learning Activities.
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on August 28, 2025Format: PaperbackVerified PurchaseI use this book in my HS Python course as a project based approach to fundamental techniques. The kids love the projects and learned a ton! They were way ahead of the rest of the AP classes.
- Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2024Format: PaperbackVerified PurchaseVery good beginners book for learning Python while building projects
- Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2023Format: PaperbackVerified PurchaseThe book is a collection of easy to understand algorithms design to teach the reader how to use python to solve everyday problems. It would be an excellent way to learn this language by working through the examples given, I have bough t a couple of books by this author and he does an excellent job of writing a text book. His books are written as if they were college text books.
- Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2024Format: PaperbackVerified Purchasethis is a collection of very simple python projects.
good to give you some ideas to start with to design more interesting coding puzzles.
All projects are text based even the ones with titles suggesting a graphical component.
just basic python with very limited use of additional libraries.
a good collection for beginners to wet your toes.
- Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2026Format: PaperbackBy the time I ran across this book, I had already been through a couple of beginner Python books/crash courses. Those made me good at understanding and troubleshooting code but not creating it. I feel like this book is an excellent way to bridge that gap. The projects are easy enough that I was able to complete most of them without having to copy or even refer to the source code in the book. I felt this was useful as I could compare my solutions with the book's and refactor and optimize for better solutions. Most of the projects are snack-sized and easy to complete on a quick break. Some mornings I even managed to write 2 or 3 on my iPhone while I was on the train.
By the end of the book, I was already thinking about expanded abilities I'd like to add to the created modules as well as new ways to incorporate them into other projects. I can't recommend this book enough as a great step in your Python journey (NOTE: I recommend any of Mr. Sweigart's books for anyone who wants to enrich their lives with Python) .
- Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2026Format: PaperbackI have a couple of Al Sweigart's other books and I've found a lot of value in them. I used one of the projects in Automate the Boring Stuff with Python as a jumping off place at work and was able to craft an application that replaced about 10 hours a week of, boring, manual work. I started the program, checked back in about 1/2 hour when the program had run, spent 20 minutes investigating and reporting the results and I was done.
This was great but I ran into a wall. In order to build on the success I'd had, I needed to learn more python. There was just one problem, reading and working exercises in a programming book bores me to tears. I like to jump right into making things and teach myself as I try to accomplish a task. This book is great for that. I like working puzzles and the exercises in this book are fun puzzles for me to solve. I have fun and I learn python. How can you beat that? I highly recommend all Sweigart's books, but this is my favorite.
- Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2026Format: PaperbackI have several python books that I have to improve my coding skills and this is by far the best one I've read. I'm a visual learner and like to hands on exercises and use cases, this book does both. It's very comprehensive and easy to read along and understand the examples. I recommend this book to beginners who are starting out learning python and to those who need some refreshers.
- Reviewed in the United States on November 10, 2025Format: PaperbackIn the age of AI and vibe-coding is this book relevant? Absolutely, yes! Without being able to understand what code AI is writing and how it structures a program, you can't know what it is doing.
This book gives you practice in reading - and if you use it as the author intends - writing programs so that you begin to understand not just how they work from a language point of view, but how they are structured. This will make you a better programmer no matter whether you program from scratch, adapt other people's code or use vibe coding.
Top reviews from other countries
GabrielReviewed in Japan on August 7, 20242.0 out of 5 stars Nice
Format: PaperbackVerified PurchaseGood for kids. The print quality is good.
Good for kids. The print quality is good.2.0 out of 5 stars
GabrielNice
Reviewed in Japan on August 7, 2024
Images in this review
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Smart AleckReviewed in Turkey on February 7, 20245.0 out of 5 stars Çok güzel bir kitap.Tavsiye ederim.
Format: PaperbackVerified PurchaseGayet güzel baskı ve rahat okunabilir punto. İçinde pek çok örnek var işinize yarayacağını düşündüğüm. Tavsiye ederim. Faydalı bir kitap mutlaka alın derim. Her zaman elinizin altında bulunsun.
Terry WallaceReviewed in the United Kingdom on February 8, 20265.0 out of 5 stars Good Python Projects
Format: PaperbackVerified PurchaseThis is a good book to improve your Python skills. It is best read if you have some previous exposure to Python. The projects are quite interesting and varied. I would recommend this book to someone wanting to improve their coding ability in Python.
UsmanReviewed in Germany on October 7, 20212.0 out of 5 stars Project code doesnt work
Format: KindleVerified PurchaseSo I typed in all the code from the book into the IDE, ran the code but the projects don’t run as intended.
Don’t waste your money on this crap.
DAVE DYSONReviewed in the United Kingdom on November 9, 20252.0 out of 5 stars Disappointingly dry—didn’t spark my coding curiosity
Format: KindleVerified PurchaseI really wanted this book to reignite my interest in Python, but it fell flat. The projects felt more like mechanical exercises than creative challenges, and I found myself losing motivation rather than gaining momentum.
While the layout is clean and the code examples are technically sound, the overall tone lacked energy or inspiration. It’s great if you’re looking for bite-sized tasks to practice syntax, but if you're hoping for engaging, real-world applications or a sense of progression, this might not be the book for you.
I gave it two stars because it’s well-organized and might suit absolute beginners—but for me, it didn’t deliver the spark I was hoping for.


































