Never have so many parents trembled at the salesman's glib pitch that knowledge is the key to happiness and that their children will not even find the door without an encyclopedia. Sales of encyclopedias written for school kids have at least tripled in the past ten years. Educators agree that an encyclopedia can aid learning, but only if it has something significant to say in clear words and pictures that appeal to a child — and only a few sets really do that.
The best are The World Book En cyclopedia, which has dominated the grade-school market in recent years, Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia and Britannica Junior Encyclopaedia. Those three now face strong competition from the New Book of Knowledge, which Grolier, Inc., has just completed after spending nine years and $7,000,000. It retains only the name of Grolier's famed earlier set, which was designed more for broad-subject browsing than for detailed, focused information.
Enticing Openings. The prices range from Book of Knowledge's $199.50 for a 20-volume set to World Book's $183.30 for 20 volumes, Compton's $179.50 for 15 volumes and Britannica Junior's $149.50 for 15 volumes. All tend to emphasize subjects found in school curriculums and each tries to use a vocabulary suitable to the grade at which the subject is most apt to be taught. Britannica and Book of Knowledge are more directly aimed at elementary school children, while the other two are more useful in high school.
The differences are partly a matter of visual impact, mood and style. Book of Knowledge, printed in four-color offset, easily excels the others in use of bright, clear pictures, and its large type and short sentences make it brisk and readable. It approaches many major subjects with an enticing narrative open ing. World Book uses the smallest type of the four, which could bother younger students, but opens up its pages with skillful use of tables, sketches and boxes.
Its sentences are short, relatively flat, but it covers more subjects than the other sets. Britannica has large type, the shortest, most oversimplified articles, the fewest illustrations and a dry factual style. Compton's writing is lively and it covers such child-intriguing topics as magic and fairies but more prosaic topics are often overdone. A child has to work through nine pages to learn about the U.S. Postal service.
Sometimes slightly authoritarian, Compton's scolds readers in an article on the arts: "The person who says he dislikes classical music is condemning himself, not music."
Typical of the books' approaches are their opening sentences on articles on Minnesota. "Minnesota is one of the chief food-producing states in the United States," says World Book. "Nature has been good to Minnesota. It has given the state many resources for work and play," carols Compton's. "Minnesota is a north-central state near the center of North America," states Britannica. "A train of two-wheeled carts screeched and rumbled along the dusty trail," coaxes Book of Knowledge. Britannica's brevity shows in its listing of well-known Minnesotans; it is the only book of the four that fails to list either
F. Scott Fitzgerald or Vice President Hubert Humphrey.