The print magazine will reach more than one million of Highlights’ subscribers, and we’re providing 250,000 copies to schools and organizations that serve lower-income communities, including Save the Children, Boys and Girls Club of America and Reading is Fundamental. Plus, kids can access a free digital version of the magazine and supplementary materials online.
To learn more about what it was like to create this special issue, we recently sat down with Highlights editors Joelle Dujardin and Marlo Scrimizzi.
When kids open an issue of Highlights, what can they expect to find?
Marlo: They’ll find puzzles, fiction and nonfiction stories, and activities, like a craft and a recipe. “Hidden Pictures” has been published in the magazine since its inception, and we include a number of other types of puzzles to motivate kids to learn while solving problems. We also have a few recurring characters, like Goofus and Gallant, who have been in Highlights for decades and present the wrong and the right way to behave, respectively. In this special issue, we focused on Be Internet Awesome’s five pillars, which encourage kids to be smart, alert, strong, kind and brave.
Joelle: Kids enjoy seeing other kids, so we always try to include their voices, like in our section where real kids write to us asking for advice. A cool fact about Highlights is that we respond to every single letter that we get from kids — whether it gets published in the magazine or not. We also have a regular series called “Ask Arizona.” Arizona is a fictional character, and the premise is that she’s answering other kids’ questions by telling a story from her own life. She resonates with our readers because kids can see themselves through her stories. For example, the Be Internet Awesome issue’s “Ask Arizona” story is about having too much screen time. Kindness is also a theme throughout, including in stories about how real kids have used technology to invent things that help others.