Customer Reviews

DK First Atlas (DK First Reference Series)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is an excellent and inviting book for children who want to learn about world geography. It gives an overview of the different types of maps and atlases, topography, climates, and oceans. Also contained are illustrations of flags of the world. Each region contains several beautiful photographs and illustrations. These, along with charts, and the large, easy-to-read text, provide information about wildlife, food, natural resources, agriculture, architecture, monuments, landscape and terrain, sports, music, typical clothing, and interesting facts. The globe is on the introductory page of each region. This is particularly helpful because the region being explored is colored red, making it easy for kids to visualize where in the world they are looking. There is also a compass on the introductory pages for each region.

An earlier reviewer suggested that people were half-naked. There are no photos of anyone that exposes what would normally be covered by a bathing suit. The one exception to this is the photo of sumo wrestler. He is wearing his mawashi, the thick belt that doesn't cover much of his behind.

I would not hesitate to use this book with children. Even young teens enjoy looking at this visual feast for the eyes and picking up tidbits of information.

I'm generally impressed by this book as a resource for teaching young children about the world, but even the US edition I have strikes me as very much oriented toward the British world view. The main thing that bothers me is that the main thing they consider interesting about Ireland is... Guinness beer! Also, the "Southern Ocean" is included, which I didn't think was recognized by US schools. Unless something changed recently, I always thought there were four oceans: Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Arctic.

Has plenty of good pictures and does introduce kids to various places, but it does not really serve well as an atlas. For purposes of teaching the shapes of countries, where mountain ranges are, what the big cities are, and such things one learns from an atlas, this is very poor. The pages are a bit too busy. Less would have been more.

We're using this book to supplement our homeschooling curriculum, and we're really enjoying it! My girls are 7 and almost-6. The 7-year-old, especially, loves picking through the pictures and tidbits of information on each page. As another reviewer mentioned, sometimes the highlights for a particular country aren't necessarily my top choices, but I don't think that should lessen the book's rating. The pictures are magnificent, the information is well laid out, and my kids and I get a good, basic introduction to a geographical area and its culture(s). We use this book in conjunction with the books Children Just Like Me and Geography Songs. We also recently added the Brain Box "Around the World" game. We're loving geography!

I'm very disappointed and irritated that I have to go through the hassle of returning it for something better. A basic geography book ok but it has no right to be called an "Atlas." The information and pictures are great but all the maps suck. I expected real photos for the maps and more then one crummy picture of each continent. I really do not understand the people who gave this book a good review. I give it a thumbs down and one sad star.

My 7 years old son love this atlas. The pictures are great, the paragraphs are short and in bigger fonts. I think this make a great atlas for 7-9 years old.

We have all the DK First reference series books. This seems to be my 5 years olds least favorite. With that said, it has great pics and shows my child how other people live all over the world.

The strength of this book is all of the beautiful photos of people from different cultures in different parts of the world. Much different from a simple world map that shows students only the random, squiggly shapes of different countries (and maybe some countries in green, with others in tan), this book shows students that there are real people and real cultures in all of these fascinating areas. So it's a very human atlas, more about world cultures than about geographic numerical data.

That being said, though, there are oddly conspicuous omissions. Though the book is primarily (and almost exclusively) about cultures, it makes sweeping statements about, for example the Middle East, saying simply that the predominant religion is Islam and the predominant language is Arabic. There is virtually no mention of Israel (not to mention Druze, Copts, Baha'i, etc.), which is strange considering how much news coverage focuses on Israel, so virtually all students (at least Western students) will have heard of Israel. Especially considering how the advanced, educated culture in Israel contrasts with so many of its neighbors (the UN has reported, for example, that some 60% of Egyptian women are illiterate), as well as the major tourist destinations in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and elsewhere, it would seem that Israel should have been worth a significant mention in this "Atlas".

As one comparative statistic, a quick search of Google News stories (25 Nov 09) pulls up "about 92,232 for Israel", but only "about 4,995 for Atlantic Ocean". One could hardly imagine a world atlas omitting the Atlantic Ocean; so why would an atlas omit Israel, which appears in the news about twenty times as often? Strange.

Hopefully they'll find space to include Israel next edition.

This DK book has beautiful pictures and colors. The pages layout is nice too. But many images are not suitable for little eyes. That's strange since this a book intended for children. This book is full of pictures of half naked people, various pagan idols, people wearing frightening masks, Lenin's dead body, Michellango's painting of a fully naked man, etc. I'm very disappointed and a bit angry.

I ordered this book a month ago, and I'm STILL WAITING for it to be shipped! C'mon Amazon, GET IT TOGETHER!!!