#ReaditMD13 Magazines and Comics Week - Spotlight on Bayard's awesome "Box" magazines (Story Box, Discovery Box and Adventure Box)

As well as taking a look at Comics this week, we've also been looking at fabulous magazines for children that engage their imaginations, tax their brains and don't involve even a whiff of nasty little plastic things sellotaped to the covers.

To that end we were fortunate enough to be sent the amazing "Box" range from Bayard Magazines, a range of brilliant mags for children of all ages.

Cleverly, the range is split into three distinct title categories.

Story Box

Ideal for children aged 3-6 (though we'd like to point out that all three ranges have fairly loose age guidance, and are interchangeable depending on your child's interests / abilities) Story Box isn't just about brilliantly written and illustrated children's stories (from a wealth of writing and artistic talent) it's also about engaging activities and great little puzzle games for little ones to enjoy.

The Story Box range investigates cool scientific stuff, introduces early learning concepts and games, and also has two brilliant apps to compliment the print magazine range too. Best of all, one of our favourite wordless story characters, the awesome Polo, regularly crops up in Story Box. Yay!

Adventure Box

For slightly older children (ages 6-9 but again great for Charlotte who is 5 and liked this range best), Adventure Box is perfect for children who crave a bit more excitement and want to investigate our amazing world a bit more through fascinating facts and a closer look at nature.

There are stories too for readers who are gaining in confidence and can tackle more text (again with brilliant illustrations throughout). Adventure Box appeals to boys and girls, with a trickier selection of puzzles to compliment the rest of the awesome content. If adventure is your thing, this is the range to look at.


Discovery Box

Suitable for children aged 9-12, Discovery Box is packed full of exciting content, brilliant historical stories based on factual events, and with tons of brilliant photos and illustrations to make this an eye-catching magazine that feels more like the stuff grown ups get to read. The format is attractive and there are also some fantastic comic strips like Space School or the Adventures of Ben and Blip.

Again, Charlotte actually really liked Discovery Box - mainly because the non-fiction content was very nicely presented and full of interesting facts, a great jumping off point for discussions and activities in class too.


We've briefly touched on the Story Box apps. Bayard also produce some great little Early Years games that are worth taking a look at.

Here are some links to Story Box 1 and 2

Story Box 1 (iTunes App Store)

Story Box 2 (iTunes App Store)

The Little Brown Bear Interactive (iTunes App Store)

Take a look at Bayard's website where you can see some sample pages from each of the Box magazines, and check out their subscription rates. They're fun, eye-catching, absolutely chock full of brilliant content and the perfect antidote to dreary licensed-character-based free-gift magazines.

(We received issues of each magazine in the range, and the apps to review)