children's magazines, branding and the evils of the modern world. allow me a rant.

[hatwoman]

dh and I were just discussing what a staggering rip-off children's magazines are. Today he bought (for himself, i hasten to add) New Scientist: packed with detailed well-written, researched features and news articles, written by people with considerable brains; he also bought (for dds, I should make clear) "Friends" packed with art work that someone with a graphic design A level could produce and words that you could probably get from a few monkeys sat at keyboards: £2.00. How tf does that work? dds get £1 a week spending money, all the magazines they like cost £2. when dh and I bought Bunty and the Beano they cost about 8p and we got about 40p a week spending money. we came to the conclusion that it can only be the day-light robbery that is branding. "Friends" is full of Postman Pat, Dora and that dinosaur character. whatever happened to non-branded children's products?

When the dds are older I cannot recommend Aquila highly enough. It is non-branded throughout and really very good for children aged 7 and up.
It may not appeal

1. because it is NOT branded, alas
2. it's for boys and girls and therefore pink is in short supply Dorling Kindersley Finding Out magazine is also fairly low-key on the product placement front, but again, factual and not very princessy. hatwoman, have you seen that a compilation of best bits is to be issued from the enormous Look & Learn magazine archive? Aquila is the modern equivalent.

PS - my dh has still not really got over the demise of The Listener

thanks Marina - not stocked at Waitrose - we'll have to throw our net wider!

It's subscription only. Am in rush as dh has caught me Mning instead of reading to ds but the website is aquila.co.uk

ds is 2 and I looked at the cbeebies and Thomas the tank engine magazines for him.

£2.80 for about 8 pages of crap and advertising with 2 or 3 activities thrown in for good measure

No wonder they ahve to resort to crappy free gifts to sell them.

Funnily enough I didn't buy them.

And what's with the shiny paper these Cbeebies mags are printed on...no way my dd can colour the pictures in with her crayons and velt stifts

Look & Learn was great. I used to really look forward to it being delivered. Then my brother and I would fight over it for the rest of the weekend. Ah, happy days

I occasionally buy CBeebies magazine for my DCs because they like stickers, DoodleDo & the cooking page. It's horribly expensive though, so definitely not a weekly buy.

There's going to be a National Geographic Kids - launching at the end of this month. Could be good.

That sounds v. interesting Fauve. Will keep my eyes peeled...

Great to hear they are bring out the kids NGeog, I saw they had an american one but hoped there was a UK edition. I haven't noticed Aquila what age is it aimed at?