Educational Children’s Magazines in English
When you’re an English-speaking expat, it’s hard to find good, fun and educational reading for your children in their native toungue, for ages 1 and above. Here’s what I know as one from the publishing world with a UK, US and Canadian view (sorry, don’t know about Australia right now).Each nationality will tend to be drawn to their country’s publications due to the differences in the English language that are found, whether in spelling or in speaking. I.E, ‘colour’ vs ‘color’, ‘pigs’ vs ‘snouts’,etc…
Please tell these people if you order you found them through this article!
Each site will tell you what pubs are for what age range:
- Canada (ey): Owl publications: Chirp, Chickadee and Owl are their titles for ages 3 and up.
A leading Canadian children’s publisher with a small range. Theses magazines are made with modesty ( but then isn’t that so Canadian?- coming from one!) and subscriptions are for 10 rather than 12 issues, hence their affordable susbscription prices. Paper quality is thin, the content is the primary attraction here. They’re not equivalent to books, contrary to the UK-based Box Publications, which have the quality of the best soft cover books.
Subscriptions for 10 to 12 issues are around $28 in the US in 2007 and $48 to subscribe outside the US.
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- US (huh?) Carus Publishing Co.; Babybug, Click and Ladybug are some titles for ages 1.5 and up. They are the result of a merger between Cricket and Cobblestone.
The Cricket pubs to me are the equivalent in style and paper quality of the French-based Bayard presse. They are a A US based educational mags publisher with a wide offering, high quality glossy paper and elaborate graphical rendering for its children’s offering.
Not to spoil anything, they have an apparently nicely operational web site (and ordering service).
They’re between $32 and $36 a year for 9 to 12 issues a year in the US but with international postage it’ll send the prices higher.
- Other US publishers :
- CBHI Publishing with mags like Humpty Dumpty, Jack and Jill, etc.;
- the NWF doing nature mags for kids (Ranger Rick, etc)
Others are: National Geographic Kids, Hopscotch, Kids Discover, Boys Life, Fun for Kidz, Highlights…
- UK (you say?): Box pubs, i.e, Bayard Presse UK: StoryBox, AdventureBox, NatureBox are the titles for ages 3 and up.
Very nice quality, glossy paper, beautiful illustrations with long enchanting text. They’re the only ones that seem to allow clients to subscribe from a number of countries around the world through an -almost- single point of contact, the Bayard Presse main site. If you’re in Canada they direct you to the Canadian subsidiary, for instance.
Prices around 60 euros for France and the UK!
Bayard Presse main site ( in French and English): Select ‘Adventure Box’ in the left side menu to subscribe.
Oops, almost forgot the :
- BBC educational kids’ mags: the Magic Key series
To me they seem a little too educational and not fun enough compared to what I know best: the StoryBox series from Bayard… They’re also usually made of the poor quality paper used by Owl publishing, which I find less pleasing as a parent reading to my children. No age range is specified but they seem to address the young reader audience, ie: 5 to 7.
They have a nifty new magazine ordering site as of April 2007, which should makes subscribing from around the world relatively painless, except when one selects ‘ France’ or even the US among the long list of countries as the country of origin, one gets the message that ‘ Service is not available for that region’. My, imagine, sending magazines across the Channel, what a feat! Not to mention across the Atlantic.
Accross the Channel, ’tis still a different World. A UK subscription is about 26 pounds for 13 issues.
The FrenchParents.net online network is a good place to discuss your opinions of magazines, books, Cd roms and other edutational products for children in English, French or both languages. membership based.
