When it comes to illustrated books – especially reference books – Dorling Kindersley are quite simply the best: although they are generally found in the children’s section of bookshops, DKs, with their superb illustrations and authoritative but readable text, will fascinate at any age.

It has become distressingly common to give youngsters gifts of money – a couple of hundred rand here for them to spend as they like, usually on a CD or item of clothing they will outgrow in a few months.

For the same outlay, a DK book is a present that will last a lifetime and give pleasure not only to the recipient but also to his parents, grandparents and younger siblings.

Two new titles to hit the shelves recently are Super Structures, and Cosmic! The later is one of those creations which, as the saying goes, will delight children of all ages, from seven to 70.

A button on the cover instructs the reader ‘Try Me’: push it and the cover is lit up by a pinpoint galaxy of red and white flashing stars. Turn the page, and the exploding universe opens like an exotic flower together with Big Bang sound effects.

Pop-ups, flip-overs, pull-outs, turn the wheel – Cosmic! has the lot and is just as visually gripping as a television programme but a lot more fun and informative.

Sections such as ‘Looking into space’ with a flip-over illustration showing both the interior and exterior of the Hubble Telescope and a pop-up Hubble time-line providing a 3-D model showing the scale of the universe are particularly interesting.

‘Our Solar System…’ unfolds into a scaled 3-D model of our planets – only eight of them plus the earth’s moon – circling the sun, while the final double page spread opens into an impressive model of Apollo 15 complete with pop-up astronaut and lunar rover.

Small wonder the ‘paper engineer’ Richard Ferguson is credited first – and the term engineer is not used lightly: it’s worth remembering though that although this book will entrance even very young children, paper is very fragile and it should be used only under adult supervision. ( )