Ads free magazines for kids?

November 11, 2012 11:57 PM

Please recommend ads free inspiring magazines for middle school age kids.

We love Ranger Rick. We love to receive real copy in mail box. We love broad context from facts to comics and puzzles. We love it's educational and not commercial. Is any other magazines which your kids love and read cover to cover?

posted by giantman to Education (13 answers total)

Seems like a good age to introduce them to AdBusters.
posted by el io at 12:11 AM on November 12, 2012

Cricket is a great literary magazine that I loved when I was younger. Fiction and nonfiction stories, poetry, sometimes craft projects and recipes, crossword puzzle, plus an ongoing comic featuring a cast of endearing insect characters. There is also Cicada for kids age 14+, which I assume has similar content to Cricket but at a bit more advanced level.
posted by illenion at 1:48 AM on November 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

At that age, I liked National Geographic, and it seems like a natural (heh) progression from Ranger Rick.
posted by Houstonian at 2:31 AM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Came in to say Cricket -- the entire line of magazines is just great. Middle school is a little on the old side of their range, but can still at least trigger some good independent thought each month.
posted by Etrigan at 6:07 AM on November 12, 2012

My kids liked Zoobooks. Each issue focused on a different animal. They have gorgeous photos and tons of facts. We even called a radio station to answer a trivia question based on the facts that my kids read in Zoobooks at 8 years old.
posted by CathyG at 6:49 AM on November 12, 2012

For girls, New Moon is superb.

Stone Soup is also great (for everyone).
posted by susanvance at 6:54 AM on November 12, 2012

The same people who do Cricket also do Cobblestone which is for 9-14 year olds and is about US history. They also do a magazine called Faces which is about more worldwide culture stuff. You can see their magazines (with some interactive previews) here.
posted by jessamyn at 7:40 AM on November 12, 2012

Muse, another from the Cricket people, is popular in my house.

One cool thing is that if you have a subscription to one of their magazines and it's not the right one for your kid, you can switch the subscription to another of their magazines.
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:49 AM on November 12, 2012

National Geographic has ads, but FYI they're aimed at a totally different demographic. So when my kid reads it he pays zero attention to the ads for fancy watches or senior lift chairs and hearing aids.
posted by BlahLaLa at 9:36 AM on November 12, 2012

Response by poster: Thank you, everybody, for your input. It's very helpful.
Let me briefly summarize what we have for now:

National Geographic
Muse
Cricket
Cobblestone
Faces
Cicada
Stone Soup
New Moon
Zoobooks
and AdBusters :)

Is anything on science/math side?
.
posted by giantman at 10:16 PM on November 13, 2012

My kids are younger than yours, so maybe I'll change my mind, but I don't think I'll be giving them AdBusters in middle school.
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:31 AM on November 14, 2012

I asked some scientist friends for other suggestions along those lines and they also suggested: Owl Magazine, New Scientist and Scholastic's Science World. They also suggested Make which is low-ad and Nova Science NOW which is not a magazine but says their kids prefer it.
posted by jessamyn at 12:41 PM on November 14, 2012

Late entry: Odyssey from the Cobblestone folks. Suggested by my friend's 11 year old.
posted by jessamyn at 3:41 PM on November 14, 2012