Nothing has been lost in this electronic translation of the popularpaper version of theAmericanHeritage Children's Dictionary. In fact, this CD-ROM only builds on itssuccess by adding animations, interactive games, voice-over pronunciations ofnearly 13,000 words, and more areas to explore than before.

The dictionary is broken into several main parts: a Word Finder, which acts asthe main dictionary; three games (Hangman, Spelling Bee, and Charades); and anAtoZsection, which shows a colorful collage of select wordsbeginning with whatever letter of the alphabet you clicked on.

TheAtoZsection is perhaps the most delightful area of theprogram. Within each scene, you can click on any image, and it will pronouncethe word and show an animation of that word.Punveils, among otherthings, a bamboo-eating panda bear, a package being unwrapped, two ballroomsdancers demonstrating the wordpartner, and a king and queen appearing onthe balcony of a palace to wave to their cheering subjects.

The Word Finder, though it seems overly simple at first use, can actually getyou lost in its depths. Once you find the word you're looking for--or use thehandy Word of the Day feature, which shows a definition at random--it willpronounce the word, display the syllables, and show past and present forms ofthe word if they exist, along with an easy-to-understand, kid-friendlydefinition. It also has two other features that pop up intermittently: the WordDetective and the Word Wheel. Word Detective displays synonyms, word history,homophones, language notes, a word builder, and more. The World Wheel will showyou similar words you might be interested in. When you look up the wordhorse, it will bring up words within the horse family:burro,donkey,mustang,nag, orpalomino, for example,which you can click on for definitions, repeating the cycle.

We only had a few small gripes with this program. The first is that theinterface is far from intuitive. We recommend parents spend some time with kidsat first to get them accustomed to finding what they need. Secondly, the programdoesn't expand to a full-screen mode. Most folks probably won't be bothered bythis, but if your monitor is larger, background applications can be distracting,especially to younger kids.

However, this children's dictionary is nothing short of charming. Kids will likeit because it makes exploring English language and words fun and painless, andparents will like it because it expands kid's vocabulary and builds spellingskills. (Ages 7 to 12)--Ara Jane Olufson