MY POP-UP WORLD ATLAS

Mountains, buildings and other landmarks—not to mention the entire Scandinavian peninsula—rise up dramatically as each single-continent spread opens in this dense but legible atlas.

In a flat, brightly colored cartoon style, Waterhouse lays out simplified landmasses and scatters them with small but clear images of characteristic flora, fauna, human figures in festival costume, major cities, notable structures and industrial products. National borders aren’t always marked, but each country is placed with a name and a tiny (usually, but not always, colored) flag. Along with basic facts about each continent on flaps, slotted wheels and pull-down sliders, Ganeri adds dozens of labels and captions on each map to point out distinctive local features. Overall, the look is invitingly full but not overstuffed, and despite occasional flubs such as a simplistic claim that “rainforests grow near the equator,” the barrages of verbal and visual data will give younger geographers a solid overview.

A quick planetary once-over, more suited to browsing than sustained study but with a level of detail likely to leave children intrigued rather than overwhelmed. (Pop-up/nonfiction. 6-9)