Kids, in my experience at least, love poring over Atlases, discovering and spotting new things. As a Primary School Teacher I have always found it odd how little Atlas work is included in the National Curriculum. So when we were offered the chance to review the Collins My first World Atlas I was only too pleased.
What did the kids think?
Alex has just turned 5, so at this stage he needs lots of help to get anything much out of the atlas. That said, it does provide a good opportunity to sit down and share a book together. He really enjoyed all the pictures of the different foods, animals and landmarks found in the various countries. He has also enjoyed finding the different countries he knows either through visiting or from stories or TV programmes.
What does Mum think?
Although this is a ‘first’ Atlas, there is a good deal of written information, mainly in the form of bite size ‘Did you know?’ facts. I think this will help to increase the longevity of this book and I think it would be suitable for children up to about the age of 10.
I like the fact that on many of the pages there are ‘Try this’ challenges which relate to a piece of information found on the page and at the back some Games and Quizzes pages all of which help to make the Atlas more interactive. It is also helpful that all the answers can be found at the back of the book!
The other feature I found particularly helpful was the ‘How to use the atlas’ page! Obviously I know how to use an atlas, but there are so many different features on the pages and this page points out exactly how to use each map, for example “Imagine you have just arrived in a new country. What will it be like? What do you want to do or see here? The symbols placed on the countries can help you decide”.
Verdict
The price is £9.99 which I think, for an informative book which could last a child around 5 years, is really very good value. The only downsides I can find is that where a map crosses both pages some of the detail is difficult to see and that there is no information included about different climates around the world which I think would have interested Alex and would have helped him form a picture in his mind about what a particular country is like. We give it 8/10.
We have a promo code that offers our readers an exclusive 30% discount on Collins Dictionaries, Reference Books, Atlases and Learning Books. This offer is available until 31 January 2014 and is valid with orders using promo code BOOKS30 on Collins.co.uk.
Disclaimer: We were given this book in return for a review
