I don’t think you’re going to find anything up-to-date in a book. Thunkable has changed considerably in the past 1-2 years. Anything in print is probably going to have outdated information.
Post a screenshot of your blocks and someone can probably suggest a better way to do what you’re trying to do.
One option is something called “painting the DVL” but it’s kind of advanced: Conditional Formatting of a Data Viewer List (aka "Painting the DVL")