Product Reviews

Kids are always asking questions but, honestly, how are you supposed to know why the sky is blue - you just want to watch telly in peace. Britannica Kids is meant to be designed specifically for school pupils. It consists of two separate encyclopedias, the student and elementary editions, intended for younger secondary and primary pupils respectively.

The articles are written in plain English, there's no doubt about that, but they're often rather dry. This is most pronounced in the articles that appear in the elementary encyclopedia. With the supporting details stripped away, the elementary articles can be uninspiring, to say the least. Illustrations are also thin on the ground and there's very little

ADVERTISEMENT

video or audio content.

Even where video clips are provided, they're not always linked to the relevant article. You can search the multimedia content, but the search tool isn't very effective. We looked for media clips on the Andes, which we knew were there, but the search tool couldn't find them. This is a real missed opportunity - questions such as why do we have seasons are far easier to explain and understand with the aid of good diagrams and even animations. And, after all, that's what the PC is good at. Nor were we very impressed with the timeline, which jumps from the formation of the solar system to the building of Stonehenge -a few billion years - in just four steps. It's also slightly disingenuous to say, as the box does, that this product includes two full encyclopedias. The atlas is the same in both editions, as is the dictionary and timeline. Given the different academic needs of a typical eight-year-old and 14-year-old, we'd have expected some customisation of all these elements.

If your kids are old enough to understand long, detailed articles, get them the adult version of Britannica. If they're too young, and they need simple explanations and a much livelier presentation, get them Microsoft's Encarta encyclopedia - it does the job much better than this.