Why React?

If there is a single javascript front-end library or framework you should learn, teach or adopt, it may have to be React.
Once a small library for the web, React has grown into a large and very diverse ecosystem that effectively empowers developers to learn one core “library” and apply it’s core concepts to a suite of additional libraries and frameworks to build UI components for the web, mobile apps, and even VR.

Those reasons as well as the demand and popularity of React, make a compelling argument to learn the core library and a few others. For those unfamiliar with React lets clarify a few things:

• React is a library, not a framework.
• It was released in 2013.
• Introduced JSX, an xml like super-set of JavaScript used to describe UI’s on the web
• React started gaining popularity around 2015 as the JS community was learning to adopt the newest language standards known as ES6 /ES2015.
• React-Native was also introduced in 2015 further adding to its popularity.
• React VR was released in 2017 and renamed React 360.
• React Ionic was released in 2019

There are several different libraries and frameworks developed and maintained by Facebook with key differences.

• React — The core library that the three others below are built on top of. It is a declarative, component-based library for building UI that you learn once and can use everywhere.
• React DOM — A library that renders React components for the web.
• React-Native — A framework for building native apps on iOS & Andriod.
• React-360 — A framework for creating web-based 360 and VR content.

There are also a few other React related projects by Facebook that are definitely worth keeping an eye on. Finally, there are countless components, hooks, libraries, and frameworks made by the greater react community such as react router, remix, react ionic, and countless others that help you build websites faster.
So if you’re excited and ready to learn React,
Here are a few book recommendations to help you.

Introductory Books

The first half of this article will be concerned with books that are reasonably safe for beginners and intermediate level developers. However, they do largely assume you have a working proficiency with JavaScript. My goal here was to narrow it down to 4 books that give readers such a solid understanding of React that they are confident enough to not only build the projects in advanced books but also try and improve upon them and explain the project they build well enough to pass an interview.

React and React Native 📖540

By Adam Boduch, 2018
Explanations ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Practice ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Assessments ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Advanced Topics ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
If you are completely new to react, I highly recommend this book.
It’s packets full of illustrations, plain explanations and even assessments to make sure you have a solid understand of React whether you use it for web or mobile.

Learn React with TypeScript 📖492

By Carl Rippon, 2018
Explanations ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Practice ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Assessments ⭐⭐⭐ Advanced Topics ⭐⭐⭐
If you are hoping to eventually join a major company as a React developer, I would definitely recommend checking out this book as it provides a foundation for writing clean, maintainable code using TypeScript.

React Design Patterns and Best Practices 📖~326

By Carlos Santana Roldán, 2019
Explanations ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Practice ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Assessments ⭐ Advanced Topics ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
This book is honestly one of my favorite intermediate level books. The author is a senior engineer at Snap Inc & the book provides an indepth understanding of react under the hood.

Learn React Hooks 📖426

By Daniel Bugl, 2019
Explanations ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Practice ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Assessments ⭐⭐⭐ Advanced Topics ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I was hooked within the first two chapters.
I cannot recommend this book enough.

Advanced Project-Based Books

After you have a firm understanding of the fundamentals of React, React Native, and react hooks, its worth considering learning the MERN stack (Mongo, Express, React, Node) and maybe even a little VR for the web. Here are a few books to help you build on what the previous books covered and hopefully modify them with your own knowledge and use cases.

MERN Quick Start Guide 📖536

By Eddy Wilson Iriarte Koroliova, 2018
Explanations ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Practice ⭐⭐⭐
Assessments ⭐ Advanced Topics ⭐⭐⭐
This is a great introduction to MERN stack.
Assuming you are talking about Mongo, Express, Redux, Node…

As far as quick-start books go, this book job does an amazing job covering Express, API’s, Mongo, and Redux. The chapters are overall very well organized, even for beginners.

Most of all though, the explanations of core concepts and code are worded in plain, simple, and concise ways that even my high school students found it easy enough to follow. The express chapter, in particular, does a fantastic job of breaking down the most common middleware and how to use them.

Full-Stack React Projects 📖440

By Shama Hoque, 2018
Explanations ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Practice ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Assessments ⭐ Advanced Topics ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Shama Hoque’s book definitely isn’t intended for complete beginners but I would recommend it for some fun MERN stack portfolio items. Also, the good news is the second edition is coming out soon.

The book has four main projects:

1. Social Media Platform
2. Online Marketplace
3. Media Streaming Application
4. VR game

By the end of the book, you should have at least 4 projects that are worth showing off.

If you want to read the full version, check it out on Medium.