Are there good ESP32-based starter kits with manual books which a kid can learn from? I was looking for an Arduino-like kit as a Christmas gift, and it seems that Arduino kits are unbeatable. The starter kit is available in 10 languages and comes with a project booklet. All ESP32-based products seem to be better suited for more advanced users and seem to have a steeper learning curve.
No, not like there are with Arduino. Arduino is definitely the best I know of for embedded programming, and it has its place there, but I stopped trying to do real work with it.