Scholastic Children's Dictionary

Product Description A visually appealing, multicultural, nonsexist resource for young students provides more than thirty thousand entires; clear, vocabulary-building labels; an accessible pronunciation guide; sample sentences; a complete Braille and American Sign Language alphabet, and more. Amazon.com Review The Scholastic Children's Dictionary provides a brief history of each letter, precise definitions, and charming illustrations. Scattered throughout are colored boxes of synonyms, suffixes, and prefixes for featured words. Perusing this quality reference volume is a rich experience that's well beyond a simple list of definitions. From Booklist This brand-new dictionary for children ages 8^-11 contains more than 30,000 entries and more than 1,000 detailed photographs and drawings, an average amount compared with other titles aimed at this audience. Although based on a British dictionary, it has been Americanized with entries such as National Guard and taco; no traces of its British origin remain. The prefatory material includes pages on pronunciation and initials, acronyms, and abbreviations. Each word entry includes pronunciation (using simple respelling, without any special symbols such as the schwa), part of speech, syllable breaks, and one or more numbered definitions. Some entries have sample sentences written in simple language for the intended audience. A few, such as the one for ain't, have the usage note "informal." Cross-references to related entries or to pictures are included where appropriate. The pronunciation table is not repeated on every spread in the dictionary, but this is not necessary since no symbols are used. There are no geographic or biographical entries. Many variations of definitions of entry words are provided (e.g., run has 19 definitions). Current words, such as binary, cyberspace, disk, disc, and modem, are defined. Throughout the dictionary, word history, prefix, suffix, synonym, and language-note boxes appear with tinted backgrounds. Many of the 1,000 pictures are drawings, some of them quite elaborate, such as the pictures for ship and space shuttle. Extensive labeling of the illustrations can be found throughout the volume. Some of the words in the illustration labels are not defined in the dictionary. The reference section provides the Braille Alphabet, American Sign Language chart, maps of the world and the U.S., flags of the countries of the world with population and other data, facts about the 50 states, a list of U.S. presidents with brief biographical information, and an index of picture labels. This section lacks some reference charts, such as weights and measures and time zones, that are usually found in dictionaries for comparable ages. The physical format of the pages is appealing to the elementary user, and the type size is readable. The Scholastic Children's Dictionary will be a good choice for elementary-school and public libraries. Libraries will also want dictionaries that use traditional pronunciation guides based on the International Phonetic Alphabet, such as the Macmillan Dictionary for Children, American Heritage Children's Dictionary, Webster's Children's Dictionary, Webster's New World Children's Dictionary, or Thorndike-Barnhart Children's Dictionary, since that is what most adult dictionaries use. Review Plenty of maps, bright color, easily-absorbed guide words and cross-references, and excellent illustration add to a dictionary which includes the latest terms and which provides plenty of clear explanation. This should reach elementary to middle school grade levels with its color and appeal. -- Midwest Book Review