Children's Illustrated Encyclopedia (7th ed.)

This is a very attractive single‐volume encyclopaedia in the recognisable Dorling Kindersley (DK) format with high‐quality printing, layout and sumptuous illustrations. Instead of the traditional style with tight text and small chunks of information on a large number of subjects, DK limit themselves to around 450 to 500 main topics, listed clearly in a contents page. These are broad subjects including countries, continents, natural features, famous people and subjects as diverse as Habsburgs, Law and Satellites.

There is an inevitable bias to US topics and history, and Barack Obama's photo on the front (the only highly topical one) means that...