Suitable magazines for a 13 year old

[walkthedinosaur]

Just asking for a little bit of advice please, at the end of the month I'll be hosting a 13 year old French girl for a week to help her learn English. I've hosted older students before and have generally used things like Heat magazine to help them read and stimulate conversation but I think it may be a bit "old" for a younger child.

Can anyone recommend a nice magazine that I can read with this girl. I don't know much about her except she's from Paris, don't even know what level her English is at either, but I tend to find the 13 year olds here in Brittany are quite young. So I suppose a magazine that doesn't contain anything of too adult nature.

Am sending hubby to the newsagent this weekend while he's in the UK so all responses gratefully received.

My DD read sugar magazine when she was 13.

My 13 yr old loves Mizz or however you spell it! She's probably equivalent to the French 13 yr olds I've met - mature but in no hurry to grow up! Enjoy your week, I used to do it and loved the teenagers (mostly!)

Yes, my 13 year old reads both Mizz & Sugar. They're both reasonable age appropriate I think, Mizz is maybe slightly less 'boys & kissing' oriented?

Think you're right, Missismac. Jackie was banned when until we were 18 - wonder what my mum would make of magazines now!

Teen Vogue is good, but need to go to larger WH Smith. My DD 14 often sends to her best friend who is in Paris.

Thanks everyone for excellent advice, have supplied list to DH so hopefully he'll get her something.

Now what will she watch on TV? Hannah Montannah? I've got two DS's who spend their time on Jetix, I'm guessing she's not going to want to learn Power Ranger English!

Don't know if it would be considered appropriate, but my 13 year old is just coming out of a year long passion for 'Friends'? She would rather have her finger nails pulled off than watch Hannah Montannah. But might just be mine & her group of mates?

Do you know you can put subtitles on Teletext - think it's 888. Used to do it for my students. Same with DVDs, a great help if you're watching something like Friends which is quite quickfire.

Dd1 14 has a subscribtion to Sugar. She likes Teen Vogue but I am too mean to buy it for her, so she only gets it when we go on holiday.

My 13 year old wouldn't watch Hannah Montana, either, though a 12 year old friend of hers is really into it.

Mostly she and I are both really into Big Brother right now, but I can hardly recommend it as suitable teen viewing for a visitor! (I don't mind watching it with DD as we can discuss the stuff that happens.)

She is still happy to watch kids comedy shows such as "My parents are aliens" And she still doesn't mind older (but still very harmless) cartoons such as Spongebob and Simpsons. But more adult comedies appeal to her too.

DD1 would not be seen watching Hannah Montana and isn't allowed to watch Big Brother (we don't watch it either).

She likes Masterchef/Hell's Kitchen type programmes and series like Robin Hood, Little Dorrit etc that have been on fairly recently. She also likes things like Strictly Ballroom and Dr Who.

Her current fave DVDs are Bride And Prejudice, Wall-E, Ten Things I Hate About You, Oliver and Breakfast At Tiffany's - so quite eclectic I guess!

This teenage girl stuff is all new to me. I think I'll just give her the Sky remote and show her how to use it she can pick her own channels then. We have several DVD's in English with French subtitles but in the past with students I've tended to leave them until an evening and we watch them together and then chat about the film the next day. That has worked really well in the past.

The last student I had was 16 and liked things like One Tree Hill, so maybe I'll just introduce this one to E4. She's not going to be watching that much TV anyhow, it will only be for an hour or so when I'm putting the DC's to bed.

Thanks for everyone's advice though I really appreciate it.