valuable in practice include (in rising order of reading age) Children’s Britannica, first
published in 1960, Oxford Children’s Encyclopedia, dating from 1991, and The World
Book Encyclopedia, which first appeared in 1917 and has undergone several major
revisions resulting, latterly, in much greater coverage of non-American items.
Comparison of the present Oxford Children’s Encyclopedia with the Oxford Junior
Encyclopedia of 1964 shows the great change in presentation and approach over the
thirty-year period.
The information giverExpectedly, the traditional role of the information book has been the straightforward one
of presenting information on a given topic. Typical examples from the 1950s and 1960s
are the Methuen Outlines series and Faber’s Your Book series. Although the form still
continues, it has met criticism for the deadening effect that these fact-filled pages tend
to have.
On and on go these sentences of controlled length, jogging by like sales managers
on a Sunday morning, building no tensions, generating no excitements. ‘Factbooks’
are typical of so many series in that they are neat packages, uniform in style, and
also in lack of any apparent enthusiasm on the part of their creators.
Haigh 1981:22At times of budget constraints, fact-filled books are seen as good value for money,
and it has been interesting to see some publishers known for this area in the 1950s
rebuilding information lists in the 1980s.
Heeks 1985:60Shaper of attitudesThis has become an increasingly large category, working throughout the age groups.
Round the World: Families (published jointly by Save the Children Fund and Macmillan
Education 1981) is an example for young children, which emphasises the unity among
the variety of lifestyles round the world and aims to enlarge tolerance and
understanding. At the upper end, one can cite Vanishing Species (Watts 1992), just one
of many titles available on environmental issues. The concern for racial equality can be
seen mirrored in Black’s Strands series of the mid-1970s, which attempted to show the
everyday life of British families from different cultural backgrounds.
Communicator of experienceSometimes books in this category spring from the perceived needs of children—for
example Our New Home (Hamish Hamilton 1993)—sometimes from the perceived needs
of society—for example Black’s Beans and Worldwide series, which reflect the
experiences of children around the world. Perhaps the most successful books in this
category stem from an author’s desire to communicate an experience of personal
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