"Shout" magazine. I DO NOT KNOW WHO THESE PEOPLE ARE!!

Straight off the bat I have to say I am completely A) out of my depth and B) completely out of my comfort zone with this week's ReaditTorial.

It stemmed from a conversation about the state of children's magazines, more specifically the "Tween" market really.

I think nostalgia had to be the only reason my wife and I started talking about "Just 17" and "Smash Hits" magazines and the heady pre-internet days where Tweens weren't even a thing, and teenagers were either too cool to read stuff like that, or bought them just for the song lyrics, problem pages (which used to make for some quite harrowing reading) and celebrity posters (look there's nothing wrong with sticking a photo of Morten Harket on your wall, nothing at all!)

We both like the idea of Charlotte regularly reading something "offline" (and the irony of that won't be lost on you as you read on) that perhaps covers music, tv, film, news and current affairs but in a less vapid way than some of the publications we rifled through in the supermarket (I really can't stand plastic tat mags and I'm not exactly in love with anything that purports to tell you the inner secrets of celebrity Vloggers or YouTube / Twitch Streaming superstars either, sorry Zoella et al).

Obviously the fact that Charlotte loves comics means that a regular subscription to The Phoenix has already happened (and hopefully will continue to be done for some years to come - and heck, even if Charlotte goes off the idea I'll be carrying on with it anyway!) We've also really loved Okido and Anorak - both fantastic magazines that stimulate and entertain in equal measure with a great mix of stories and activities.

But the 'other stuff' seems harder. The likes of brilliant factual magazines like "Aquila" and awesome fiction stuff in "Storyteller" prove that it's possible to produce amazingly engaging mags for STEM and storytelling but what of the rest?

We've looked at "The Week Junior" as a really good attempt to fill the gap left by the BBC's "Newsround" mag but are we just hoping against hope that in this internet age, print mags aren't dying out in their droves and that there's still hope for a resurgence of interest in print that might match what's going on in children's publishing elsewhere (ie print kicking digital's ass).

"Shout" magazine was one example we looked at - obviously for girls older than Charlotte. This one seemed to be sliding down the slippery slope of promoting perfect looks, photoshopped faces and a shallow obsession with all things pink. Worse still, it seemed to make huge assumptions that all kids her age spent the majority of their time online, or watching Sky TV series we've never even heard of.

Magazines that promote the cult of 'zelebrity' (sorry, not sure if that's an actual phrase but it's one I've ended up using to try and categorise folk who have somehow become famous outside their YouTube channels) really weren't what we were looking for at all.

The pink! It burns!

At Charlotte's age we're still (hopefully) a couple of years off her discovering the 'joys' of tapping stuff into a search engine and coming up with all sorts of nuggets (or horrors) - but thankfully with two tech-savvy parents, we're already beginning to put all the parental controls and locks into place to ensure that if she ever gets loose on the laptop she's limited in what she'll have access to. So far, if she gets any time at all on computers at home it's always with one of us in the room or keeping an eye on what she's up to. She still loves playing games or checking out MyMaths but obviously this idyllic blissful ignorance of the internet won't last forever.

Back to the mags though and in the end, of the selection we bought for her, it was actually an arts and crafts mag she went for, pretty much binning the others after just a cursory flick through. Our idea of her being interested in something that featured music, movies and TV ended up being passed up in favour of something creative instead. Admittedly the magazine we chose came with a ton of freebie (and probably terrible quality) art materials, but I guess that was a better outcome than I expected.

It feels like for the time being this nostalgic idea of finding a magazine that appeals to her and isn't overtly focused around education or learning really is a pipe dream.

Ultimately the decision will be hers on whether she'll continue with the one she chose but if anyone out there has a good recommendations for girls around 9 that we haven't already mentioned, please drop a comment below!

Happily living on Phoenix Island :)

This week's #ReadItMD13 theme is a celebration of children's comics and magazines. Not the sort that usually come with a nasty little plastic toy, and are just glorified TV ads wrapped up between glossy covers, but the sort of comics and magazines that tap into the most amazing resource on the planet. A child's imagination.

As you can see from the header pic, Charlotte is slowly building up her fab collection of The Phoenix Comic, probably one of the best things to happen to the Britcomic scene in a very long time. The Phoenix first caught my attention a year or so back, and we bought a couple of copies to check it out. Since then we've signed up and subscribed, and Charlotte's reaction to the strips (and seeing that wonderfully decorated envelope slide through the letterbox every Friday) reminds me of my reaction every time I used to nip round to the local newsagents to pick up my copy of the Galaxy's other greatest comic, 2000AD (Featuring Judge Dredd, of course!)

The Galaxy's Greatest Comic - Still going strong!

If your children are a bit older, you can still buy this epic comic and it's never too late to start appreciating the sheer thrill power.

Back when I was a kid, comics were seen as 'low brow' reading, always frowned upon and definitely discouraged in schools. Now it feels like it's taken a long time for early years specialists to see the value in comics and periodicals as a way to engage reluctant readers, and deliver a potent combination of a storyline that feels immediate and approachable, wrapped around visuals that spur the imagination into life.

The "Comics for Phonics" range of early years / early reader books from Pearson are a range we've previously shouted about. They're an excellent range of children's phonics books that lay out stories in comic-strip-style formats that feel exciting and nicely paced, for a range of reading abilities.

Comics are great for developing a child's narrative and visual skills. I largely learned to draw the sort of things I liked to draw purely by copying bits of comics and then making up my own stuff. Similarly with stories, drawing comics allows a child to deliver the narrative of their characters without needing to fuss and muss around too much with "he said, she said, he exclaimed, she sighed" - In fact the time honoured method of dialogue delivery (the speech balloon) has started to creep into Charlotte's drawings at school (something I'm no doubt going to be in hot water about at some point! Eep!)

Comics aren't for everyone, and so we'll also be taking a look at magazines this week. Children that prefer a great mix of fact and fiction as well as an absolute TON of content, activities and brilliant art and writing could do far worse than check out the utterly sublime Anorak Magazine - the happy mag for kids (and happy it most certainly is!)

Anorak Magazine. As beautiful inside as it is outside

Developed to be the perfect antidote for those aforementioned 'plastic tat' magazines, Anorak is definitely worth taking out a subscription to if you want a little bit more from your children's periodicals. Every issue seems to get better and better, wrapping together some of the best artists, writers and crafters in the business to come up with a constant deluge of engaging content.

In a similar vein we've also been introduced to the fabulous "Box" Magazines from Bayard. We'll be showing you a bit more of these later in the week but check their website out. They do three magazine ranges to cover toddlers right up to teens.

Story Box for younger readers. Featuring one of our fave textless story characters, Polo!

There are also apps from Bayard to compliment the print magazines. Like Anorak these wrap together a brilliant mix of facts, stories, activities, brilliant puzzle games and fabulous artwork to stimulate young minds.

We're only just looking at the very tip of the comics and magazines iceberg here. Stay with us during the week to find out a lot more about child-friendly comics and magazines as we'll be taking a more in-depth look at a few we think are rather special, and also (hopefully) featuring a couple of guest articles to show parents (and kids) that comics are definitely not for dummies, and magazines needn't be shallow, gift-dependent and destined for the recycle bin.