'The brand new brilliant magazine for bright children' Good or bad idea?

[tigermoth]

Flyer in my 6 year old son's bookbag -

'CY - The brand new brilliant magazine for bright children - 1st issue out 20 July.'

So are we to assume that the publishers think modern children's comics are too dumbed down for the target market?

Blurb follows:
*
'The most entertaining and absorbing monthly magazine for 7 - 12 year olds.

What makes CY so different?
It is full of intelligent and entertaining features on subjects your childern will really enjoy

Its puzzles and challenges will stimulate higher order thinking skills such as logic and creativity. It will stretch young minds and get them really thinking.

It will extend your child's knowledge beyond the National Curriculum.

Its packed with brilliant stories, activities, puzzles, fascts, competitions, reviews comic strips and all sorts of exciting things for them to do and make.

It got a website www.cyclub.co.uk that apparently 'acts as a motivator for completing challenges with a starpoint league table to win prizes.

It's all a bit far from the Beano isn't it?
Will there be a sister comic for stupid kids?
Is Cy too elitist (have to admit their tag line - brilliant magazine for bright kids made me gag)
Or is CY fulfilling a real need - making a stand against naughty kid comics like 'Toxic' to show that learning is fun and cool.

Discuss....

Just had to check the website

Do other magazines like this already exist or are they carving new territory, I wonder? It just seems so formula, somehow. I think what I most object to is the prominent spotlighting of the target readership.

BTW in the flyer, phrases like 'higher order thinking skills, brilliant stories, child's knowledge' were written in bold.

As an adult I prefer not be be led by the hand to much - if I see a book or a magazine I might like, I want to make my own decision about reading it.

if they are that G+T buy the the FT every day
Sheesh

I don't have a problerm with something saying it is for bright kids - IME all children are bright and enquiring and deserve a wide range of stimulations. I quite like the look of this mag, anything that might make children look beyond the branding and marketing that they are bombarded with day in day out is a good thing. Of course, this mag is a brand of its own, but it is no worse (a lot better, in fact) than the godawful Barbie Thomas Glitter Warship mags covering the shelves in my local newsagents.

Why the name "CY"? I must be fick

Well if you are, I am too blueshoes - I was wondering that.

see why?
...perhaps...?

See Why, I imagine... but for kids who have sooo many bright and intelligent things to do that they don't have time to spell words out in full .

I rather like the idea of Barbie Thomas Glitter Warship. Could catch on!

ahhhh, silverbirch. Good lateral thinking ...

Ah, See Why, of course. For the txt generation. Dh will ban it then, he goes ballistic at fake spelling, you should hear him about Rappor coffee.

I'm going to be a curmudgeon here...

waste of money
take them to the library where there are proper books crammed full of stories, information and things to make and do
which are free

Having said that I don't object to those special-interest historical children's mags about Egyptians, dinosaurs, Romans etc because they're so damn useful when project time rolls round.

Wot's wrong wiv The Beano?

Don't like the sound of it myself. My bright 11 and 12yo read the broadsheets, subscribe to "Focus", sometimes get "New Scientist" etc. They may not understand everything they read, but it all whets their curiosity, and besides they'd cringe to walk into the newsagent and ask for "that magazine for bright kids" .
I don't think my 7yo dd would like it either; there are plenty of books about after all.

My DS loves The Beano. I guess CY is the kind of mag aimed more at parents than at kids, so parents can feel good about the bright children they've produced.

Tell me more about "naughty kid comics like 'Toxic' " - sounds up DS's street.

Exactly wanderingstar, it's not as if there's a shortage of interesting stuff out there to read, and bright kids are better off engaging with the real world, news, books for older kids etc IMHO.

I reckon though this might be well-intentioned, there could be an element of clever marketing ie loads of parents will want their kids to read this mag, because it's a way of saying "my kids are gifted you know" - to themselves or others.

And, tigermoth, re your "new territory" question, there's is already the rather cosy, unvainglorious and non-self-promoting Aquila , as revealed to me by Mumsnet. Recommend it hugely.

Aquila is fab because it's very interactive children can send in letters and jokes and lots of them get published because the circulation is relatively small. Similarly they have lots of competitions and children have a good chance of winning something at some point dd1 won a very schmanzy modelling kit of a neanderthal head(!).

And the articles are quite funky as well.

I am hoping ds will like Aquila when he is a bit older, but he is doing just dandy on a diet of supposedly much less salubrious fare such as the Beano and Wallace and Gromit magazine. The flyer sounds utterly toxic I have to say TM , I'd give a mag like that a big fat wide berth.
The Dorling Kindersley Finding Out magazine is good for children our age, even the "thickos" explicitly excluded from CY's readership.

would like to see a copy before I make any judgements. Problem with the existing comics for boys, IME, is once he has ripped off the inevitable crappy free gift (usually mega-toxic sweets) and entered the competitions which he never wins, my ds (8.5) doesn't even glance at the rest, as the content seems to be very advertorial-led with too many 'posters' and badly-written cartoons. The latest thing he dragged home from the shop with his pocket money was something called KRAZE (pronounced crazy, eeuugh) which was pretty inane. (But he proudly presented me with the free Johnny depp poster, so I can't really complain )

oooh just had a look at Aquila - does look good. You can be sent a free digital copy to have a look at.

My dss enjoy Aquila too (Grandma bought the subscription - after recommendation on here of course.)

What they love even more though is the new kids' newspaper called First News. It's fab! (I pay for that subscription.)

And what they love even more than that is the Beano
They only buy it occasionally - and pay for it themselves

Aquila does look good - thanks bink. I like the idea of some more gentle writing aimed at this age group. IMO boys comics (at least) can be a bit too relentlessly hyper and aggressive in design and writing style. ( especially 'Toxic'). The Dorling Kindersley Finding Out magazine is one I'll be watching out for as well.

I think you may have hit the nail on the head, snowleopard

It's just doing what any publisher tries to do, find a market and design a magazine that is carefully targeted at it. Stems from the first commandment of journalism: 'know thy reader.' Suspect their actual market is pushy parents. It's just doing for the child market what the Economist does for the adults - saying 'here's a clever publication for clever people'. Will be interesting to see whether they are right that there are enough people like this out there willing to buy a magazine.