Knowledge Encyclopedia (2023)

DK Knowledge Encyclopedia, 2023 third edition The one to buy if you buy only one for a child of nine to twelve. Its 360 pages run from the inside of an atom to black holes, taking in chemistry, animals, the human body, robotics and history, and the detailed 3D computer images do much of the explaining: a cutaway shows what a paragraph would struggle to describe. Pages are dense, so it suits a confident reader more than a beginner. The October 2023 third edition was fully updated for recent developments in science, technology, space and geography, so make sure you get it rather than an earlier one.