Summary

Book News wrote about a previous edition of this classic reference: The best encyclopedia is the one that gets used--and World Book has expended much effort studying the habits of readers, school curricula, and patterns of classroom use to ensure that this encyclopedia is one that will indeed be used. The result is a colorful, well-cross-referenced and easy-to-use encyclopedia which varies its approach so that the "mouse" article is written for a young audience, while articles for more advanced topics, such as "cell," are written for advanced readers. Longer articles are structured according to World Book's fivefold plan (complete story, visual aids, related articles, outline, questions) and proceed from simpler to more sophisticated concepts and reading levels. Volume 22 includes a section titled A Student Guide to Better Writing, Speaking, and Research Skills, which is designed to help students with reports." New to the 2002 edition is a volume examining various stages, results, and controversies of the 2000 U.S. census, tracing its history from the population tally of 1790 to the detailed population study of 2000, looking at census figures for the individual states and for the ten largest cities, and putting the data in context. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)