Muse Print Magazine

Muse is an exceptional magazine. Though it is aimed at "tweens", gifted readers from about age 7 up can appreciate it. Parents may wish to pre-read or discuss controversial pieces with their children. There are plenty of interesting articles on a variety of topics. Recent issues have covered stone disks in the Yap islands, gamers making real money from selling virtual goods, racial prejudice, genetics, and snowflakes. Muse magazine does not contain any advertising, other than subscription offers from the publisher. It's quite refreshing. Some of my family's other magazines (Sports Illustrated Kids, for example) are filled with ads for junk food and toys.A full page in Muse is always devoted to Larry Gonick's "Kokopelli & Company", a cartoon featuring the magazine's quirky cartoon mascots. These tiny creatures also cavort on pages throughout the magazine. Bo's Page is another regular feature. Here, readers may learn about a scientific experiment to discover how ants find their way home, or why gorillas eat wood, and vote as to whether humans will survive to the year 2100. The Q & A section has answers to queries submitted by readers. Examples questions are "would time travel actually be possible?" and "what happens when you blow a (soap) bubble in winter?" . Robert Coontz and Rosanne Spector provide clear, and often humorous, answers. Ivars Peterson is the Muse math guru. His "Math Page" offers suduko challenges and other math puzzles as well as articles such as "The Simpsons and Math". Every issue of Muse offers a contest of some sort, tucked into the corner of a two page spread honoring winners of the previous issue's contest. Kids are invited to become living art in a tableau vivant, or to design imaginary money.I highly recommend Muse for both boys and girls.

My son received a Muse gift subscription and not only does he enjoy it, but I read it from cover to cover too! The articles are well-written and cover an amazing array of topics throughout the year. The writing style isn't just "dumbed down" for kids, but written in a way that makes understanding easier. Some of the articles have even sparked a desire for further research on his part. Wow-entertainment disguised as learning that makes you want to learn more...don't tell your kids! I've just renewed our subscription and we'll be trying to beat one another to the mailbox.

I got this hoping that, given the broad range of topics covered, my scientifically-inclined yet fickle 9 yr-old son would at least find one or two articles interesting each issue. My expectations were exceeded. He ends up reading it cover-to-cover. He quotes facts from it in dinner conversations. With adults! This is just great youth journalism. The only downside is that he is so excited when he gets it that he zips through it in under an hour. Now what do we do?

According to my daughter, this is the BEST magazine EVER. Based on what I've read of the issues we've received so far, I would agree that it's pretty great. The price is a bit high, or so it seems at first, but when I consider all the crap that isn't being peddled to her in its pages, the price is worth it. It's especially worth it when I see the glee on her face that one day each month when the new issue arrives.

Nice gift for our grandchildren. Good, thought-provoking material for this 10+ age group. Hopefully give the kids something more that staring at a electronic device...

Great BUT... order early! For some biZarre reason the publisher cannot start your subscription immediately, so you may have to wait literally MONTHS to receive the first one. For example, we missed the resub. date and ordered a couple of weeks ago (early April) but apparently will not receive an issue until MID-AUGUST. This is ridiculous. Please Please Please Amazon, ask the publisher of this excellent journal to get its act together: it's not rocket science (although your children will probably learn about rocket science in the pages of Muse.... eventually). I notice that the publisher CricketMag now has a continuous service subscription options.

Believe it or not, I have well-rounded, intelligent, curious, fun children aged 11 and 15 who do NOT like this magazine. I ordered it for them based on the product description and the many glowing reviews. They've always been voracious readers but this magazine doesn't appeal to them. Why is it such a miss? I think Muse presents information in a "fun" manner but the information isn't something my kids long to tap into. They're natural learners and certainly not dullards but, at this point in their lives, are not spellbound by presentations about eccrine glands, biometrics, organ transplants and biodiversity. If your child has very adult interests, this will be great. My kids will get there someday but they're not there yet. I'm giving away the nearly untouched editions to a local charity in the hope that someone will enjoy it.

My 14 year old got this subscription as a Christmas gift last year and LOVES it!!! It's great that he gets a new one every month and he pours over every word as soon as he has his hands on a new issue. There is a lot of great fun-fact-type information and many opportunities to encourage speculative conversation. I love how much he enjoys it and how much we enjoy sharing it with him.