The 1999 Canadian Encyclopedia. Student edition.

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

While CD-ROMs have yet to prove their superiority to printed material in
many publishing fields, the encyclopedia/dictionary is one realm where
one well-organized disk is worth a bookshelf full of reference works.
Not only are they cheaper (if one ignores the basic requirement of a
computer), but once they are up and running CD-ROMs are unbeatable for
providing quick access to infor-mation.

This CD-ROM is based on McClelland and Stewart’s five-volume Junior
Encyclopedia of Canada. It includes 4665 articles backed up with maps,
charts, photographs, video clips, and recordings. Students seeking
information on a particular subject need only type in a keyword and a
list of possible matches immediately appears on the screen. Many
articles contain cross-references that can be directly accessed by
clicking on them with the mouse. Students can also copy text from an
article to a new document with the added bonus of footnotes being
automatically added. A Gage Canadian Dictionary is built into the
program so that students can look up definitions merely by clicking on
the word. According to the publisher, the target audience is students in
Grades 3 through 8, although some students in the lower grades will find
the text somewhat advanced for their reading skills.

The main sins of this encyclopedia are ones of omission. Many articles
are terse to a fault. Others are hobbled by a lack of illustrations. The
24-page user guide is poorly written. The language is too advanced for
the target audience and many secondary operational details are not
mentioned in the text. Finding captions for photographs, for example, is
not listed in the guide or main menu.

Yet, it is hard to stay mad at an encyclopedia that can inform young
Canadians on subjects ranging from Aubin-Edmond Arsenault (first Acadian
premier of Prince Edward Island) to Janusz Zurakowski (test pilot of the
ill-fated Avro Arrow). Although there are more extensive or less
expensive encyclopedia CD-ROMs available, this one offers the best value
for consumers seeking a specifically Canadian focus. Highly recommended.