Magazines for Moppets

On U.S. newsstands last week was the second issue of a brand-new newspaper: Children's Times ("The Complete Newspaper for Boys & Girls"). The 10-c- semimonthly, 20-page tabloid, put out by Manhattan's Leader Enterprises Inc., had something for almost every child's taste. Among the features: the story of a schoolboy named Ed Hoover, who couldn't make the football team but grew up to be director of the FBI; a how-to-do-it section on teaching your parakeet to talk ("When he trusts you, he will perch on your finger while you take him out of the cage"); "Railroad Whistle Talk," i.e., what the toots of a locomotive whistle mean; a secret code so that "you can send letters and notes that no one else will understand"; a problems column. (Send your answers to this question: "Your best friend agrees to trade one of his old toys for one of yours ... At the last minute your friend changes his mind ... Do you have a right to be angry?") Children's Times was hardly on the stands when another--and similar--brand-new paper followed it, Children's Weekly.

Children's Times and Children's Weekly are the latest entries in the fast-growing field of magazines and newspapers for moppets, which last year sold more than 5,000,000 copies. Most of the magazines sell no ads; they have found that advertisers' doubts about the value of the market often do not make the effort worthwhile. But many of the magazines do well on circulation alone.

Some Hints. The field is led by Parents' Institute Publisher George Hecht, 57 (TIME, Oct. 9, 1950), who has a simple explanation of why children are turning to magazines: "Every child likes to do what he sees his parents do," i.e., read magazines. As father of four of the biggest children's magazines, Publisher Hecht has copied some adult magazines exactly. Three years ago he put out a junior Reader's Digest called Children's Digest (complete with "book condensations" of Pinocchio, Glister's Last Stand, The Wizard of Oz, etc.) and watched its circulation swell to more than 500,000. Six months ago he launched Humpty Dumpty's, for children from three to seven. By last week its circulation topped 250,000.

Children's Digest meets the blood & thunder of the comic books head-on by running full-color illustrated versions of stories and poems such as Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade. Readers also get simple crossword puzzles with pictured hints, e.g., a drawing of a jam jar next to the definition. "It's good on bread." Parents' also puts out Piggety's ("The Children's Magazine of Animal Stories"), and for girls (ages eight to twelve) looking for a "service magazine," Polly Pigtails', which provides gentle tips for dieting under the title "Why So Fatso?", or warns readers "Don't Be a Clutterbug," and tells them how to keep their rooms neat.

A Dent. Curtis Publishing Co.'s Jack & Jill (est. circ. 745,000), the biggest of the children's magazines, has readers in 127 countries, even puts out a Braille edition. In Boston, Child Life (circ. 251,868) Publisher Erriest E. Frawley says even space-happy readers fall for some old-fashioned ideas. "Such basic things as animals, fire engines and trains still have appeal. Our readers loved a story about a trip to the moon. But we got more letters about a pirate story than we've ever had."

Children's magazines are still far from matching the lure of comic books. But Parents' Institute and others think they have begun to make a dent. In a Parents' survey, 30% of the children reading their magazines read fewer comic books; 9% watch less TV.

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