Book Review: “Head First HTML by Elisabeth & Eric Freeman”; O'Reilly Media;

Today, serious Web pages use HTML and XHTML to structure their content and CSS for style and presentation. You need a book that understands how to incorporate everything correctly. Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML explains the fundamentals of HTML, XHTML, topics like web color, and CSS properties. In this book, pictures and step-by-step instructions explain how to build great-looking, standards-compliant web sites.

I have been teaching myself the amazing art of HTML, CSS, & XHTML ever since I began writing a blog in 2009. I have come across plenty of articles and books that confused me more than it actually helped.

I am usually pretty good at following a textbook *because I’m a nerd like that*. But the HTML books were totally sending me in the wrong direction. I guess because I only knew very little and they seemed to jump around and do circles on me.

Kind of like teaching a kid the alphabet- how can they learn if you’re teaching them A one day and then Z the next? To learn something I need to actually get the concept of HOW something works. I can’t just read the HTML lingo and automatically know WHAT it does…

I am SUPER glad that I found this book. It is nothing like those other boring HTML books. This one even has a fun, modern font. This is amazing because it seems to capture the attention of my brain for a longer span..

The pages are absolutely brilliant. Laying it all out in an easy to learn style so that even the most earliest beginner can fully grasp what every single element, markup, or styling can do to something.

I also love how it has fun little animations, drawings, and pictures to further explain HOW and WHY everything does as it does. Such as when you see the picture above—and it’s pretend markup, you can see that the carpet has wool shag and the drapes are blue.

In real HTML this book shows you how the font is bold, underlined, or crossed through and how to do it yourself. I wasn’t a complete beginner when starting this book, but this has furthered me along to an even better understanding.

This book is SO much fun and it makes learning fun. You can compare this to watching sesame street when you were 5 compared to writing those copy and trace papers. Wasn’t it so much easier when Big Bird told YOU?

Having a book that is so nicely done up with all the colorful images, pages, text, and illustrations has really won me over. I don’t know how I could ever live without this book. It stays in my briefcase 24/7.

I had always had plans of designing and building my own blog, but because of this book- I think I just may take it a step further and start designing for other people as well. I am a creative by heart, and this book has just shown me the light of designing and integrating images, css, and HTML all into one!

This is an amazing book, and whether YOU, your spouse, sister, brother, or best friend want to learn the tricks and trades of HTML and XHTML as well as CSS- this is definitely the ONE stop shop for that! There are endless possibilities as to what you can do with what they teach in this book!

That’s what I thought of this book. It was completely understandable the way they said it. I will NEVER have to search online for an answer about HTML again, only to be led down the wrong *AND confusing* path. This book has it all. Before you know it, you’ll be designing websites, web pages, or prettying up your very own BLOG!

BUY IT: You can buy the Head First HTML & CSS for $39.99 print edition, $31.99 Ebook edition, or $43.99 for print AND ebook editions.

Disclosure: This isn’t a sponsored post, O’Reilly Media gave me an Ebook Review Copy only. The opinions in this post are completely honest and not influenced in any way,

Jessica Renee