Merriam-Webster's Elementary Dictionary
An all-new edition of the essential dictionary for children grades 3-5, ages 8-11, with more than 36,000 entries. Expanded usage sentences and phrases include over 1,300 quotes from classic and contemporary children's literature. Additional enhanced features include hundreds of new, colorful illustrations, photographs, and diagrams; word history and synonym paragraphs; pronunciation paragraphs for each letter; child-friendly usage notes; and Greek and Latin word root paragraphs to aid...
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\ School Library JournalGr 3-6\ Bridging the publisher's Primary Dictionary and its Intermediate or School offerings, this update contains more than 36,000 entries and 800 color illustrations, photographs, and diagrams, many of them new. Most entries include sample sentences; 1300 are quotations from popular children's books (listed in an appendix). The work of classic authors such as Louisa May Alcott and E. B. White, along with contemporary writers such as Judy Blume and Jack Gantos, is excerpted to "...help build language skills and encourage a love of reading." Many of the quotes are uninspiring and not particularly representative of the books: for example, a line from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Scholastic, 1999) reads: "The sides of the car were scratched and smeared with mud." On each page, guide words in color appear at the top, and a vertical alphabet list (with the current letter framed) scrolls down the margin. Most pages have one or two images or highlighted paragraphs discussing word histories, Greek and Latin roots, or synonyms. "Headscratchers" contain inane curiosities such as, "Thousand is the first number whose name is spelled using an a. That means that you can count from zero to nine-hundred, ninety-nine without ever using an a!" Front matter includes a labeled page key and an explanatory "Using Your Dictionary" note. Signs and symbols (including mathematical and business-writing conventions), a geographical name dictionary, and full-color political world and U.S. maps are appended.-Barbara Auerbach, New York City Public Schools\ \ \
