Two more magazines I remember from my childhood for y'all today.
For some reason children's magazines always remind me of the dentist or doctor's office. Outside the school library, those are places kids get to read magazines made specifically for them. I wonder if other people share this association.
My kids have an auntie that is currently sending them Highlights and High Five (Highlights for preschoolers) and in the past have gotten National Geographic Kids and National Geographic Little Kids, and they really do get a kick out of getting their own magazine in the mail. The Highlights are almost always good for an afternoon of activities.
But recently they also get to play with some of these older magazines I've gotten via eBay. Modern children's magazines are in the bargain basement of ebay shopping, and I regularly can get a lot of 10 or 12 magazines for .99 plus shipping on publications going all the way back to the forties or fifties. Dirt Cheap. Junk? You be the judge, eh? A couple scans up today from .99 cent lots, there are plenty of fun and cheap scan targets out there...
First up, Ranger Rick's Nature Magazine, April 1979. Big thanks for the edit work on both of today's magazines to my man McCoy, he's done a great job with both of these.
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Get the scan
here.
I think I picked this issue to scan because of the adorable goat on the cover. A family mine was close with raised goats, so we drank goat milk from time to time and spent time playing amongst these critters. I don't know if the hippie schools I attended early in my education had this magazine or if it was the library or doctor's offices or what, but I read a bunch of these as a kid.
Wiki sez
Ranger Rick is a children's nature magazine published in the United States by the Education Department of the National Wildlife Federation.[1] Its first issue was published in January, 1967. Historically, the magazine has been aimed at children; the NWF site today suggests ages 7 and up. (NWF also publishes two companion magazines, Your Big Backyard, which is aimed at ages 3–7, and Wild Animal Baby, which is aimed at kids 12 months old to 4 years old.[2])
Most of the pages of the magazine feature multi-page photo stories of animals in their natural habitats. There are also illustrated stories, games, riddles, nature news, poetry, contests, and other features and columns. Ranger Rick also refers to the protagonist in a long standing feature of Ranger Rick magazine, Ranger Rick's Adventures. The feature is published in the form of an illustrated short story, in which raccoon Ranger Rick and his gang of friends from Deep Green Wood explore the world, and often encounter threats to wildlife and environmental problems.
You can get these magazines and learn more about the efforts of the National Wildlife Organization
here.
Contents. Take the pledge, children, environmental education cannot begin too early.
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A call to activism in defense of the environment based on respect and appreciation of nature, Rick's pledge is excellent. It's time to put up your dukes, people, the debate on energy policy is coming soon, and it promises to be rough and tumble. When elected representatives (educated men???) feel that a heavy winter in Washington is somehow proof that global warming is a hoax or that any environmental regulation is somehow a restriction on their own individual rights, you've got to know that a fight is coming. I, for one, will be writing my representatives in favor of cap and trade, in opposition to nuclear energy, in favor of stimulus to increase production of domestic geothermal, solar, and wind technologies, and in opposition to increased exploitation of national park and forest land. The recession has caused an easing of fuel prices but there's no doubt they will soon begin to escalate once again. A proactive energy policy is much better an a reactive energy policy. After seeing the health care fiasco unfold, I'm not that optimistic about the level of debate we'll get on energy. I guess my main hope here is in the private sector. I do not trust the coal and gas industries to clean up their act unless forced. However, a very large percentage of venture capital proposals these days involve green technologies, perhaps start-up technologies can upend the entrenched interests. Sigh, but anyways, back to the mag! More goats!
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Every issue contains a piece of illustrated fiction like this one featuring Ranger Rick and his crew:
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And today's second magazine, Sesame Street Magazine from July 1983. The stack I got from this vintage all have cool wraparound covers. I think this Grover as Pied Piper by R. Brown is way cool. McCoy did an excellent job polishing it up and joining the pages.
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Get the scan
here.
Unless, I'm mistaken the push for the Children's Television Workshop emerged as a result of Reagan's deregulation of the media and withdrawal of public support for Sesame Street. Having to turn to other sources for funding, this was just one of four magazines published around this time that also included The Electric Company, Kid City, and 3-2-1 Impact. During Reagan's terms, guidelines for how many hours of educational programming were mandated along with how many commercials could be shown were discarded and the amount of advertising in children's programming skyrocketed (along with the number of entertainment options for children, seeing as how garbage cartoons might now be used more effectively to hawk sugary charm and chocolate crunch.) Other important aspects of this deregulation included the rejection of the fairness doctrine (that every station need show balanced viewpoints) and an increase in the number of stations any single entity could own. Welcome to Fox News as advertising arm of the Republican party and a GE owned MSNBC and the current crisis of the marriage of media, business, and political power. Not good for democracy. Ack, I'm drifting off topic again, sheesh...
Sesame Street has held it's own and expanded over the years, though, in large part due to it's unique programming. The recent Malcolm Gladwell best seller on social epidemics "The Tipping Point" had some neat material on how Sesame Street and some other more recent programs use research in determining the effectiveness of their lessons, cool stuff. The magazine, too, has been designed with much care. The magazine is short on articles but is packed with activities, which I think makes for a great time. The magazine is full of pages that are to be cut and folded - every inch of the mag is put to good use. My daughter and I went through this issue after I scanned it, reading and cutting and building and had much fun in the process. We sometimes print out an activity pages from scans of this sort of material. The kids have fun picking which page they want printed. Scans of coloring books are very economical in a way, as you can just print out the pages you will use as you use them. But onto sampleage-
Contents. Look at this lesson plan, all sorts of grist for the mill...
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Take your kid to the vet, they love it. My girl has helped me take a sick kitty in a few times this year, she says she wants to be a veterinarian and really liked this feature
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Animal Dice.
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Next time, a final post on modern magazines, a trio of pop culture tidbits - Rerun, Happy Days, and Kung-Fu?!?!
