The Firefly French/English Visual Dictionary (Hardcover)

It’s said that a picture is worth a thousand words. The truth of the statement is amply evident in the pages of the Firefly Visual Dictionary. The book is itself beyond verbal description. It’s absolutely stunning, with 6,000 color images depicting entire disciplines and what falls within. There are 17 sections: Astronomy, Earth, Vegetable Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Human Being, Food and Kitchen, House, Do-it-Yourself and Gardening, Clothing, Personal Adornment and Articles, Arts and Architecture, Communications and Office Automation, Transport and Machinery, Energy, Science, Society, and Sports and Games. The sub-subsections are too numerous to list here. But just to give the reader a partial impression of how complete this visual encyclopaedia is I’ll enumerate the sub-headers for the Earth section. They are: Geography, Geology, Meteorology, and Environment. And to give further example, the Geology subsection contains images of the following: structure of the Earth, section of the Earth’s crust, tectonic plates, earthquake, volcano, mountain, glacier, cave, landslides, watercourse, lakes, wave, ocean floor, ocean trenches and ridges, common coastal features, and desert. The illustrations are crisp, brilliantly-coloured, and include cross-sections revealing in full detail the physical structure of the promised items, such as a volcano during eruption, along with two smaller cross-sections of an explosive volcano and an effusive volcano. In the chapter, Food and Kitchen, pages and pages are given over to illustrations of every kitchen utensil in existence. If you haven’t the slightest notion of what a diable or couscous kettle look like, you’ll get the full picture here. Under silverware, you see all of the different forks, dinner knives, and spoons; there’s even a part-by-part description of a knife, fork and spoon. In the Do-It-Yourself and Gardening Chapter, you’ll learn about every type of carpentry tool—instruments for screwing, sawing, drilling, shaping, gripping and tightening, measuring and marking, and on and on. Here again, the beauty of the dictionary is that every tiny part is clearly illustrated and labeled. You can see the blade locking bolt on the circular saw, the miter latch on the electric miter saw, and the speed selector switch on the cordless drill. The battery pack, charger, and chuck key are illustrated separately beside the cordless drill, and there is a vertical side column which shows examples of bits and drills with every miniscule part of their structures made visible and clearly labeled.
I can’t say enough about this book. It is 960 pages long, weighs 3.6 kilograms, and is worth its weight in gold. Every household should have it. Kids will use it for schoolwork, teachers will use it as an aid in the classroom, and visual artists will find it indispensable. This book will also assist translators and terminologists. And since a picture is worth a thousand words, why not preview the contents for yourself by visiting Firefly’s website at: www.fireflybooks.com.
Olga Stein (Books in Canada) This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Can't remember the name of that squiggly pasta you stumbled across in the supermarket last year? Need a picture of the earth's structure from its core outward and the identification of various layers of rock and soil? Diagram lovers will enjoy browsing through this 960-page successor to The Macmillan Visual Dictionary, also compiled by linguist specialists Corbeil and Archambault. The new edition contains 10,000 more terms (35,000 in all) and 500 more full-color, computer-generated illustrations (6000 in all). The 17 chapters are organized by broad subject categories (e.g., "Animal Kingdom," "Food and Kitchen," and "Arts and Architecture") and incorporate a wide variety of items, from astronomy to evolution to modern life. But this book is far from inclusive; for instance, neither bobcats nor recorders are included, though readers will find both panpipes and the lyre. Also, the occasional British term may confuse American readers; e.g., "color circle" is used instead of the more common "color wheel," and "American football" appears instead of simply "football." The illustrations range in size from large enough for every minute detail to be easily visible (e.g., motorcycle) to small enough to require a magnifying glass (e.g., ichthyostega). Except for the preface, table of contents, and index, the only text in this book consists of chapter headings, themes, titles, subtitles, and actual terms. Furthermore, the index lists all illustrated terms but does not list subject categories. For example, neither dinosaur nor Jurassic Period appears in the index, but nothosaur and tyrannosaur do. Although not an essential purchase, this visual dictionary offers diagrams detailed enough for the average browser if not for those who need more in-depth analysis of specific terms. Also, students who need "that" picture for a school assignment will find it useful, as will those whose first language is not English. For public libraries.
Laurie Selwyn, Grayson Cty. Law Lib., Sherman, TX
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.