DK My Encyclopedia of Very Important Things by Dorling Kindersley (Children's, Non-Fiction, 10E/10E, short 'n' sweet review)

It's super colourful!

 September 2016, Dorling Kindersley, 224 pages, Hardback, Review copy 

Summary from Dorling Kindersley

Full of fun facts, colourful illustrations, and games that will feed a child's imagination and quench their thirst for knowledge, whilst supporting the National Curriculum. My Encyclopedia of Very Important Things is the perfect book for children from 4 - 7 years of age.

Supporting the national curriculum and providing all the information young minds need and much more, My Encyclopedia of Very Important Things is split into four sections, All About Me, Animals, People, and My Planet, covering everything from the continents to the blue whale in fun and engaging ways.

 Nayu's thoughts

Encyclopedias aren't just for finding useful information for a school project (not everything is found online these days), they are for learning about the world in a fun way. I frequently flipped through similar books to this one when I was younger, fascinated by how the world works. Yes I didn't have the internet for most of my childhood, so books were a huge deal. This isn't a super large encylopedia, so while theoretically it could be used as a door stop, but that's not way to treat a book!

There is a seamless mix of real life photos alongside happy looking drawings, stories about emotions and positivity from the sun and wind, humour in how the pictures are drawn, and wonder at the sheer range of creatures, habitats, weather, and much more all in this book. Looking in here gives a starting point for various topics, such as endangered animals, which can then expand to looking at the subject in further depth through both books amd online resources. 

I'm not just saying this, if I could only have 1 reference book now then this would be it because of how interesting it makes subjects I find dull like different vehicles. If it has wheels and moves that's good enough for me! My favourite part is the sectns on all the types of clouds - for some reasons I love how cute and fluffy some of the clouds look, and all their names which usually end in -us.