First Encyclopedia of Science (The Random House Library of Knowledge)

Over 400 alphabetical entries cover such scientific topics as acid rain, computers, numbers, and sound

Grade 3-7-Over 400 brief entries in alphabetical order cover a broad spectrum of mostly physical science, technology, and popular ecology. The profuse, full-color illustrations suggest the "Eyewitness" (Knopf) and Reader's Digest series. All subjects are covered in a more straightforward manner than in standard student dictionaries and encyclopedias. However, staples of elementary science such as seeds, vegetables, fruits, leaves, clouds, fish, reptiles, mammals, and seasons have no entries, nor are they indexed. Dinosaurs are found under "fossils" and "paleontology." Birds are included in "conservation" and serve as an illustration for "flight." "Life Story" boxes occasionally appear and include a few sentences about scientists such as Edison and Newton, but not Galileo or Bell. Browsing yields some further curiosities: the Madagascar periwinkle appears in two entries. Neptune, currently the ninth planet, is defined as the eighth. There are several oddities of indexing. The vocabulary occasionally rises to a higher level than the many illustrations suggest: words like "reactive" (under "calcium") are used but not defined, and emphasize the absence of a glossary. Definitions aren't always clear. Many illustrations are confusing: a centrifuge and a giant centrifuge are about the same size. A test for colorblindness doesn't state what an afflicted person would or wouldn't see. The many pictures will attract browsers, but The World Book and David Macaulay's The Way Things Work (Houghton, 1988) will provide more reliable information.
Bonnie Farrier, New York Public Library
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.