An encyclopedia designed especially to meet the needs of elementary, junior high, and senior high school students.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
Designed to meet the research needs of students in elementary through high school, World Book is also a good general encyclopedia for adults. It is current, accessible, easy to use, and well illustrated. The 2004 print edition has 88 new articles. They include Angiogenesis, Bullying, Factory farming, Identity theft, Macular degeneration, Money laundering, Obesity, Palestinian Authority, Statin, and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Judy Dench, Bill Frist, and Annika Sorenstam are a few of the people covered in new biographical entries. Alzheimer's disease; Arafat, Yasir; Halley's Comet; Marijuana; and Tofu are among the 174 articles that have been extensively revised or rewritten. Another 2,200 articles were partially revised. More than 220 maps were added or changed, and there are 350 new illustrations. Revisions were made to 315 bibliographies. Some 155 new contributors provided fresh entries or revised existing ones.
World Book "makes revisions in every field of knowledge or activity whenever developments make it appropriate to do so." It generally scores high in providing current information, and there are few examples of topics that are left to languish while others are brought up-to-date. Changes related to the war in Iraq are evident in many entries, including Terrorism and the entries on George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein. Iraq includes references to the July 2003 deaths of Saddam Hussein's sons. A new entry, Persian Gulf War of 2003, gives the number of deaths of coalition soldiers (300) as of September 2003. New entries on SARS and the West Nile virus reflect current health concerns. The space shuttle Columbia has an index entry, and the accident that destroyed it is covered in two paragraphs added to the article on Space exploration. There is an entry on John Kerry although it has not been updated since his election to the Senate in 1985. Since World Book begins printing in October of the year prior to the year of the copyright, it sometimes misses late-in-the-year developments, such as the December capture of Saddam Hussein. In a few cases editors were able to anticipate changes and include some postdeadline events, such as the results of the California governor recall election. The index is detailed and easy to use, and includes page numbers for illustrations and maps. The research guide is useful for students who need help organizing a project.
Offering high-quality, current, accurate information in an attractive package, World Book continues to be a first choice for libraries, schools, and homes. Barbara Bibel
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
The best encyclopedia is the one that gets used, and World Book is one that will indeed be used. -- Book World, October 2005
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Best,
By Notnadia (Currently upstairs.) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The world book encyclopedia (Hardcover)
Even in the age of the internet, a good set of encyclopedias on a bookshelf adds dignity, depth and quality to a home library, and of all the encyclopedias available on the market, I have always found World Book to be the most readable, comprehensive and all-around best when it comes to being up-to-date. As far as reference material goes, World Book is more approachable than all its competitors and it imparts information without pedantic verbosity. I also love the illustrations and maps, many of which qualify in their own right as impressive works of art. World Book is a sheer joy to read and worth the investment.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A MUST FOR THOSE IN THE "KNOW"!,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The World Book Encyclopedia (Hardcover)
It's hard to stop reading the World Book Encyclopedia. They're so jammed with thorough and timely information that you'll feel your brain bursting with new knowledge. I sat down one afternoon with a glass of milk and a bag of Oreos and before I knew it the sun had gone down and I was already reading about Zimbabwe.
IT'S THAT GOOD!
17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A comparison review,
By magellan (Santa Clara, CA) - See all my reviews (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (COMMUNITY FORUM 04) (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)
This review is from: The World Book Encyclopedia (Hardcover)
Please note that this is for the CD version of the encyclopedia. I couldn't find an Amazon listing for the multimedia version, so I thought I would make my comments here for the print set. The World Book is one of the four or five great 'pedias out there, and I have been very pleased with mine, so I thought I'd make a few comments and compare it with the other major sets since I have all of them and you might find my comments useful in picking out the best one for you.First, the Britannica set is no doubt the most scholarly and technical of these, and many of the articles in technical subjects, such as modern epistemology and phenomenology, classical western and eastern philosophy, comparative linguistics and philology, mineralogy, petrology, and geomorphology, in which I've read a fair amount, are pitched at the advanced college level. In fact, 40% of the Britannica is devoted to science and it is definitely the strongest there. But the history articles are also very solid, along with the other areas of the humanties. The CD version contains 10,000 more articles than the print version, and there are 24,000 major articles in that, and 65,000 if you include the Britannica's shorter Ready Reference ones. However, no matter what Britannica says, this set is not appropriate to anyone under at least basic college level, and most of the articles read as if they were written to provide technical overviews for professionals who are working in the field, rather than for the average college student. The World Book is consistently rated the best in terms of ease of use by professional librarians, and they prefer it to the Britannica. This is because the articles are written for the expected level of the reader, rather than like the Britannica's, which are all at the under or upper undergrad college level or higher. For example, the article on CATS will be easier than the one on PHYSICS. The World Book is very strong on history and biography and I would say that is its main strength. It has 17,000 articles, plus an extra 1800 in the CD version. Grolier's puts out the Encyclopedia Americana as well as the New Book of Knowledge and the Grolier's Academic Encyclopedia. The New Book of Knowledge is also very good and Grolier's gives you that free as a bonus along with the Encyclopedia Americana (the online versions, that is) when you buy the Grolier's Encyclopedia. I like having all three so this is a very good deal for the price of one. Grolier's is a good, all-around reference tool and I like it as well. It is pitched at about the same level as the World Book, so it isn't quite as technical as the Britannica and would be useful as a family reference set in much the same way as the World Book. Encarta has the most multimedia bells and whistles, and the best integrated atlas of the world, which is a truly wonderful atlas, much better than the ones included with the other encyclopedias here. It has the best interface and navigation and over 10 levels of magnification and detail for the maps. The others atlases aren't nearly as detailed or flexible. Encarta has been enhanced by Microsoft's acquisition of Collier's Encyclopedia, which contributed an extra 3000 articles to the current version, boosting the scholarly level quite a bit. Encarta is good for both science and history, and the history articles for major countries such as China, Japan, Russia, England, and so on, range from 80 to 120 pages long, which is pretty impressive. The biographical articles on founding fathers such as Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and so on, range from 20 to over 30 pages, which is also pretty impressive. The Oxford Encyclopedia is shorter that the above ones but has very concise and to the point articles on history topics that are excellent. A surprising find was the Simon and Schuster encyclopedia, which I was impressed with, and I would say is comparable to the Grolier's or World Book in level of difficulty and coverage. Hope my little comparison guide helps. Happy encyclopedia buying and reading!
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