[.ca] The American Heritage Children's Dictionary (ISBN 0618701400)

From Amazon.com:
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

Up-to-date words and good illustrations.:
I am very happy with the content of this dictionary. It will be a gift for my granddaughter who is 8= however I almost returned it because it is so heavy (6+ pounds). Once she finds a place for it, she will enjoy it and get good use from it for the next two or three years.

early elementary only:
I bought this dictionary at the end of First grade, thinking it would last through Elementary school Now, he's in 3rd grade, and this year, he's been unable to find 3 words. Last year, he couldn't locate two words. It's aggravating because I want him to learn how to look words up, and spell them correctly. But, he can't find them in the dictionary! I do not remember what the words were, but I doublechecked with him and they were typical words in a third grader's vocabulary, but not in the dictionary. I am now seeking a new dictionary.

The initial excitement waned:
The kids were excited when the dictionary arrived. My nine year old son decided to look for a word - tenacious. We could not find the word. We've only had it one day - hopefully we'll find everything else from here on.

Not good enough:
My daughter is a 4th grade girl. She could not find a word "hypothesis". Also, she had a difficult time to understand the meaning of a new word. It was a kind of redundant explanation. We decided to buy a new dictionary "Macmillan Dictionary for Children", which has a word "hypothesis" and better explanation of the word she could not understand in the American Heritage Children's Dictionary.

Great Kid's Dictionary:
I bought this dictionary for my daughter when she started first grade - knowing that it would be a while until her reading skills were good enough for her to use it. Beginning in about the 2nd grade, she started to use it regularly - and in 3rd grade (last year) she used it all the time. Terrific first dictionary for a kid, with great pictures in full color, good art and illustrations, nice bold type, etc. What's nice about it is that it's layout is just like a grown-up dictionary - which they will switch to in time. This is a perfect dictionary for a grade schooler to learn to do 'research' with appropriate elementary school/junior high vocabularly. Highly recommended!