As a child I LOVED a big atlas.
It was a frequent rainy afternoon thing for me – haul the enormous atlas off the bookshelf (I’m not sure anyone else ever looked at it, to be honest), and spread out on the floor with it. Gently turning the fragile and super-huge pages, gazing at the weird places in the world. Following the meandering tracks of a river until it got so big it straightened out and tipped itself into an ocean.
Looking up exotic places, imaging where the jungles were, and what they were like (I was overly-fond of Johnny Weissmuller and Cheeta as a child…)… The atlas, in the days before the interwebs, was literally my window to the world.
But the text itself was always so *whispers* boring, and I soon glossed over the dull lists of population and climate facts on the side of the page.
Which is a shame – my geography is embarrassingly bad (only this week I needed to look up where Montenegro is), and had I read more and imagined less I might now have a vaguely decent grasp of the layout of the globe.
This new childrens picture atlas from Collins is a real treat though. Taking that innate curiosity kids have for our planet, and exploring it with actually fun facts and pictures. The atlas follows a natural progression; opening with the continents, then moving to a general world view of countries before exploring deeper into individual countries and the things to see within each.
The maps are accurate – but clear and colourful enough for children to explore the world and let their imaginations run riot.
And on each spread, in traditional Atlas style, there are interesting facts in simple and easy-to-grasp language.
A brilliant starter Atlas, and an essential ingredient to any home bookcase.
The Collins Picture Atlas [Second edition] will be published on the 21st of this month. As always Collins are brilliant at providing free resources, and if you look here you’ll see some great atlas printables which will not only give you a flavour of the book, but prove a lot of fun to colour in as you talk about the continents.
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