Scholastic Visual Dictionary

Detailed cross-section illustrations allow young readers to view the inner workings of many things, such as volcanoes and flowers, while descriptive text provides an explanation of their many parts.

It's often easiest to learn words by pointing and asking, but it's hard to do that with a comet or inside a nuclear power plant. The Scholastic Visual Dictionary uses 700 startlingly clear illustrations of these and many other objects and processes to help define over 5,000 words. Arranged in easy-to-browse sections such as Sky, Earth, Clothing, and Measuring Devices, the dictionary helps build kids' (and perhaps adults') vocabularies. The featured words and concepts range from very simple, like shapes and colors, to relatively complex, like helicopter parts and musical notation. The complete alphabetic index in the back helps locate particular words quickly, and while there's no usage guide, the book is simple enough for even the youngest reader to pick up and begin using at once. (Ages 7 and older) --Rob Lightner