[FlyingAvatar]

I would guess the main reason it gets recommended to beginners is because it's the most prominent language with the most minimalist syntax, so you can read it more closely to a written language.

Also, being interpreted, you don't need much (or really any other than the interpreter itself) tooling to start playing around with it. This is true, of course, for lots of other languages.

I think also the fact that people do use it for real solutions makes it more appealing to recommend than a "toy" language like Logo or BASIC. (Mentally, I see BASIC as separate than VB. And yes, I am sure some people will comment that real solutions are built in BASIC, but I am sure these days Python dwarfs those in count by a factor of 100, at least.)