The Junior Visual Dictionary

Brenda Reed is a public services librarian in the Education Library at
Queen’s University.

Corbeil and Archambault have been involved in the production of visual
dictionaries since at least the mid-1980s, and have now brought this
genre to a most impressive level. Scholastic’s Facts on File: Junior
Visual Dictionary (1989), an earlier version of the current title,
featured 144 pages of color illustrations and covered 22 themes. The
book under review features 211 pages of brilliantly colored
illustrations and covers 30 themes. “Weapons” is the only topic not
continued in the 1998 edition. “Sports” and “Transport” have
been broken down into more specific categories such as “Team Games,”
“Indoor Games,” “Road Transport,” and “Maritime Transport.”
The notable difference between this book and the 1989 Facts on File
edition is the dramatically improved computer-generated photography.

The book’s cross-curricular nature will make it appealing to teachers
and students of science, music, history, geography, art, physical and
health education, English language arts, and ESL. There is an excellent
diagram of the layout of a symphony orchestra, 10 pages of “Human
Body” diagrams, and sections on “Measuring Devices,”
“Communications,” and “Animal Kingdom.” The “Architecture”
section features remarkable reproductions of a castle and a gothic
cathedral, with magnified insets for sections of the buildings requiring
particularly detailed labeling. Readers can assess individual items by
referring to either the excellent index or the opening “Themes and
Subjects” table.

School and public libraries will want to purchase copies of this
dictionary for both their circulating and reference collections. Highly
recommended for home purchase and for all classrooms and libraries
serving middle-school students.