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The Dictionary of Imaginary Places is a guidebook-style compendium of entries describing the features of over 1,200 imaginary places from the world's books and stories (and occasionally other story sources, like music). So it's like a travel guide with short entries on places like Oz, Narnia, Lilliputia, Jurassic Park, Earthsea, The Shire, etc. (It happens to have more of a fantasy than an SF slant, and omits heavens, hells, places in the future, places outside the planet earth, and pseudonymous places.)

My question: Does anyone know of a web site for kids and/or teens that does something similar? That is, a searchable, browsable site dedicated to describing many of the fictional places (especially those from books) that might be of interest to kids?

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God help me and I might be thrown out of the secret librarians club for this but honestly Wikipedia is a great place for this. I would never use it for hard research but for pop culture stuff like this (especially a little on the shall we say geeky side) it tends to be pretty good.

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We won't tell anyone, we promise. – Gene Ambaum Dec 17 at 18:39
No, I would agree, Wikipedia's good for this kind of pop info, if you have a particular place in mind you want to investigate. Although the terminology and layout are not necessarily kid-friendly. I didn't think to specify browsability until now, but ideally I'd like to find a browsable (as well as kid-friendly) site dedicated to invented places. – debrarian Dec 17 at 20:19
(I've updated my question to specify "browsable" and a site "dedicated to" this theme. Thanks for helping me clarify.) – debrarian Dec 17 at 20:31
Browsable would eliminate wikipedia. I will look around and see what I can find. – Matt Dec 18 at 0:18
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I couldn't find one all-inclusive website (but how awesome would that be!!? I hope someone finds it for you!), these may work. Not sure how kid/teen friendly they all are, but might be worth checking out:

http://urbangeek.net/dictionary/ The Dictionary of Imaginary Places was originally published in 1980, with substantial updates in 1987 and 2000. There are over 1200 entries in the book, ranging from Middle-Earth to Narnia, Oz to Earthsea, Hogwarts to Neverwhere. Despite the wondrous variety available, I was disappointed to see so many locales left out, so much uncharted territory. So I have taken it upon myself to fill in the gaps, and invite you to do the same.

The Librarian's Internet Index has a few selected websites for "Fictitious Places in Literature": http://lii.org/pub/subtopic/1794

http://isbndb.com/c/Imaginary_Places/ ISBNdb.com project is a database of books providing on-line and remote research tools for individuals, book stores, librarians, scientists, etc. Taking data from hundreds of libraries across the world ISBNdb is a unique tool you won't find anywhere else. Please check the FAQ for more details.

for that patron obsessed with all things Vermont :o) A Gazetteer of Vermont Places: Real and Imagined: http://crs.uvm.edu/community_data/gazetteer.htm

A really kid-friendly site is http://www.storybookengland.com/index.php It's an interactive atlas of England that maps out books like the Alex Rider series, His Dark Materials trilogy, and even Winnie the Pooh! The music is a tad annoying but the site is fun :o)

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Thanks for hunting, Emily! That Storybook England mapping site is cool (connecting the stories to the actual geography of England and story-related travel tips); I'd never seen that before. The others, although interesting, don't really fit the bill: too limited in scope and not kid-oriented. But I got a kick out of the list of fictional places in VT. :) – debrarian Dec 17 at 21:07

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