Webster's New World Children's Dictionary 1st Edition

Description

.com Review Did you know that hamburger was once named "Hamburg steak" after the German city of Hamburg? This and other intriguing word histories are scattered throughout the 896 illustrated pages of Webster's New World Children's Dictionary--a revised edition with updated entries, maps, a dictionary guide, and a whole new look. Designed specifically for children ages 8 to 11, this dictionary contains more than 33,000 entries--word choices based on contemporary and classic children's literature, school texts, and the writings of children themselves. No children's dictionary is comprehensive; here you won't find definitions for metaphor or modem, but you will find definitions for jubilee, Myanmar, e-mail, and instant replay. Special bulleted points address potentially confusing homonyms: "The words heroin and heroine sound alike. He was arrested for possessing heroin. The heroine of the novel is a little girl." Young readers will also find many words used in sentences, pronunciation guides, "word choice guides (such as when to use costly vs. expensive vs. precious), spelling tips ("There is a host in ghost"), and more. Closing the tome are a basic atlas, an illustrated album of U.S. presidents up to Bill Clinton, a guide to the United States, state birds, state flowers, and weights and measures. (Ages 8 to 11) Read more From School Library Journal Grade 3-5?From the table of contents to the supplements, this revised edition is visually more appealing than the 1991 first edition. While the contents are almost identical, the change in design, graphics, spacing, and use of white space will make this dictionary child-friendly. Included in the 33,000 entries are compound words, places, people, abbreviations, contractions, prefixes, and suffixes. Unique to this dictionary is a history of each letter at the beginning of each alphabetical entry?i.e., Phoenician, Greek, Roman, and Medieval shape and "look" of each. The visual positioning of each state on the larger U.S. map is also helpful. As in the 1991 edition, the word histories, word choices (synonyms), spelling tips, and word makers (prefixes and suffixes) will be helpful to young students. The supplementary material includes time zones, capitals of each state, abbreviations, political maps, an album of the presidents, an album of states, state birds, flowers, and weights and measurements. While the Macmillan Dictionary for Children (1997) and the Scholastic Children's Dictionary (1996) are good choices for this age group, the Webster's New World compares favorably with them in style and design. A good choice for general purchase.?Marilyn Brockway, Scarsdale Public Library, Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. Read more