'The best books, reviewed with insight and charm, but without compromise.'
- author Jackie French

Monday 21 September 2020

Review: Australian Children's Illustrated Dictionary

It’s thrilling to come across a book for children of this quality and presentation.

Parents, teachers and librarians will find this reference resource the ideal first dictionary for young readers.

With every entry illustrated in stunning colour, it will improve language skills, and broaden the mind.

How to use this dictionary opens the door to a journey of learning.

Definitions, sometimes more than one, examples of how to use words in a sentence and parts of speech, are the first crucial areas addressed.

Alphabetised borders highlight the letter in use, allowing fingers to easily find the word they’re searching for.

The main attraction of the A, is the alphabet in a mixture of languages: English, Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Arabic, Gujarati, Japanese, Roman.

The whole book makes learning fun with Dictionary games. It explains words that sound alike and others that are spelt the same but sound different. There are single pages dedicated to one theme, many have two, filled with images dedicated to that letter.

There are lots of extras as well. A double page of Abbreviations, a Spelling Guide, a Word Building page, Facts and Figures with Metric and Imperial measures, temperatures in Fahrenheit and Celsius, Cardinal and Ordinal numbers, Roman numerals; symbols and punctuation marks, and countries of the world.

This is the book adults are looking for to hand over to their children. It is jam-packed with information and in no way disappoints. Beautifully presented, it’s a book children will use for years.
 
Title: Australian Children’s Illustrated Dictionary
Author: John Mcllwain
Illustrator: Grahame Corbett, Peter Dennis, et al.
Publisher: Penguin, $35.00
Publication Date: 31 March 2020
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 9781760896577
For ages: 8+
Type: Non Fiction