The New Children's Encyclopedia

A handsome new single volume encyclopedia from DK joins a stable of established reference titles from this publisher. Sturdily bound and lavishly illustrated, its busy pages have a contemporary feel. Information is organised thematically with sections covering space, earth sciences, the environment, animals and plants, countries of the world, culture, history and politics, science and technology. For dipping into or for whetting the appetite on a subject it may well fit the bill, but as a serious reference source for school projects, or even to answer queries, it is disappointingly lightweight. There is a worrying lack of rigour and consistency in its editorial coverage, and the cross referencing is sporadic and haphazard at best. In the section on Space, for example, there is only brief description of the individual planets, no information given on their size or density, yet an information box on Pluto gives all the facts that a child might want to look up. The phases of the Moon are covered separately in two different places. There are other examples of sloppy editing with mysterious captions that do not explain the pictures or add information. The science sections are stronger than those on the arts and history, but the chapter on continents and countries of the world is weakest of all. A single spread in addition to a map to cover the entire Asian continent is hopelessly insufficient. Do not be fooled by the portrait of Elizabeth I on the cover. Neither she nor any other Tudor monarch receives so much as a mention in the book. The inclusion of a reference section might have remedied this and many other omissions.