My First Encyclopedia

This entertaining picture information book is designed to help children satisfy their growing curiosity about the world around them. My First Encyclopedia is arranged in themes that move from the familiar environment of a child's everyday life to an exploration of the wider world. Learning is fun as lively artwork and full-color photographs combine with clear, simple language to answer the questions that young children ask. Educational and informative, My First Encyclopedia prepares children for the first years of school and encourages independent reading. Developed in consultation with language specialists, an alphabetical index is also included for easy reference.

Kindergarten-Grade 3-- A single, oversized volume covering a wide range of topics from pets to rain forests, food to space travel, with each broken down into many information sound bites. For example, the double-page spread on the desert includes sand dunes, camels, cactus, and nomads, to name just a few. Full-color, "Eyewitness Books" quality photographs (many of which look as though they were lifted directly from titles on the individual subjects) are interspersed with detailed drawings and paragraphs of text to lend eye-catching, if somewhat busy, variety. The maps, however, are disappointingly few and poorly detailed. Also, grouping such creatures as spiders, insects, butterflies, and snails together under the heading "mini-beasts" is nonscientific and misleading. This is an attractive book that children may enjoy browsing through , but there is not enough information to answer their questions, or to call itself an encyclopedia. --Joyce Richards, Prairie Grove Elementary School, AR
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

For the most part, Watson succeeds in the challenging task of compiling an informative "encyclopedia" of interest to a very young audience. As in previous books in the My First series, the full-color, crystal-clear photos steal the show, enabling preschoolers to "read" the pages on their own and identify familiar objects. Curiously, the entries are not arranged alphabetically, but rather thematically, beginning with those subjects closest to a child's daily experiences ("The human body," "Families," "Games and sports," "Jobs people do") and moving on to more wide-reaching topics ("In the ocean," "Traveling on land," "Into space"). Too often, ancillary or arbitrary information is offered rather than definitions or succinct descriptions. For example, the text accompanying a picture of a factory reads: "Factories are often built on the outskirts of a town. This means that trucks delivering to the factories do not have to drive through the heavy traffic in the city center." Still, there is plenty to look at and learn, especially for those at the younger end of the intended audience. Ages 3-7.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.