ABSTRACT
The structure of reference texts, their global organization, varies from an alphabetic list giving meanings and sometimes roots of words, sample sentences and synonyms, as in a dictionary or thesaurus, to the topic-based organization of an atlas and of some encyclopaedias for the very young. Transitional texts are often highly original and vibrant and sometimes at risk in a genre-dominated approach to expanding children’s reading repertoire. Dictionaries for children, today created with the help of education consultants and teachers as well as lexicographers, came into being only at the beginning of the twentieth century. The main publishers of children’s dictionaries nearly always include thesauri for different ages and stages in their title lists, although there are some texts combining a dictionary and thesaurus both in print and online. Some of the first texts to help children develop an interest in words are the lively ‘word books’ which appeal in the pre-school years and beyond.
