Magazines for little people

For their birthdays, both Will and Owen got a subscription to an age-appropriate magazine. Will has been thoroughly enjoying the stories, photos, facts and activities in ‘Your Big Backyard.” But I’m an even bigger fan of Owen's Babybug Magazine . Silly as it may seem to buy an under-2-year-old a “magazine” subscription, these magazines are really more like books – sturdier than books with tearable paper pages but more enticing than a board book because the pages are thin and much more akin to the books that big people read. Something about the short little two-four page “stories” of daily baby-and-toddler life -- mixed with the occasional nursery rhyme – have proved riveting for both Will and Owen from well before their first birthday through their second. (Our first subscription to Babybug for Will was a gift from a former preschool teacher who has a good sense of what will fascinate kids.)

And apparently Babybug stories resonate with me too. I’ll find myself walking down the street and reciting one of the little one-page rhymes in my head for no reason: “Zoey and Zack sat back to back, eating their crackers out of a sack. Mmm, mmmm, what a good snack.” Evidence that the boys have wanted me to read the books again and again. And that I often think like a 1-year-old. (That rhyme apparently stuck with Will too since he recently named two newly purchased guppies “Zoey” and “Zacky.”)

What magazines do your kids enjoy? Or do you stick with books for the little people in your house?