The American Heritage Children's Dictionary

The revised, 21st-century edition of The American Heritage Children's Dictionary, designed for ages 8 and older, doesn't contain the words "plethora," "treacle," "metaphor," or "reciprocal." What use is it, then? you may ask yourself, but that's a question that many kids could answer for you. The letters are large enough to read! Every word is used in a sentence! There are over 800 color photos and illustrations! When you look up the word "erratic" in The American Heritage Dictionary for grownups (Third Edition), it says, "1. Lacking consistency or uniformity; irregular. 2. Unconventional; eccentric." When you look "erratic" up in this children's dictionary, it is defined as, "Not following a steady or usual course; irregular. Our rowboat's course was erratic after we lost our oars." More third-grader-friendly? Certainly.

More than 400 words have been added to this edition--"electronic mail," "online," "seersucker," "vagabond," and "millennium," to name a few. This hefty, appealing hardcover dictionary contains 14,000 main entries and 37,000 boldface forms; it's the only children's dictionary to feature a 10-page phonics guide to help early readers sound out and spell words; and it includes a thesaurus (even if it is very basic, at six pages long). Throughout the book are information blocks such as "Word History" ("hibernate" comes from the Latin word for winter), "Language Detective" (how do you pronounce "creek" where you live?), "Vocabulary Builder" (with word parts such as "-less"); and "Synonyms." If you're looking for word fun for the whole family, younger children ages 4 to 6 may enjoy The American Heritage Picture Dictionary, and older kids ages 11 to 15 might find The American Heritage Student Dictionary helpful. It's never too early to give your children the tools they need to learn! --Karin Snelson