| Categories | Children's magazine |
|---|---|
| Frequency | 9 per year |
| Founder | Marianne Carus |
| First issue | September 1973 |
| Country | Carus Publishing Company |
| Language | English |
| Website | www |
| ISSN | 0090-6034 |
Cricket is an illustrated literary magazine for children published in the United States, founded in September 1973 [1] by Marianne Carus [2] whose intent was to create " The New Yorker for children."
Each issue of Cricket is 48 pages. The magazine was published nine times a year (monthly, with some of the summer months combined) by the Carus Publishing Company of Peru, Illinois. Its target audience is children from 9 to 14 years old. Until March 1995, Cricket was published by the Open Court Publishing Company [3] of La Salle, Illinois, now part of Carus.
Cricket publishes original stories, poems, folk tales, articles and illustrations by such notable artists as Trina Schart Hyman, the magazine's art director from 1973 to 1979. Hyman contributed to the magazine until her death in 2004. Carus has solicited materials from well-known authors and illustrators, including Lloyd Alexander, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Hilary Knight, William Saroyan, Ursula K. Le Guin, Eric Carle, Stacy Curtis, Wallace Tripp, Charles Ghigna and Paul O. Zelinsky. Cricket also runs contests and publishes work by its readers.
One distinct feature of Cricket is the illustrated cast of recurring characters that appears in the margins of each issue, similar to a comic strip. These characters include Cricket, Ladybug, and other friends, most of whom are also insects. The characters are involved in a storyline that runs throughout the issue, but they also comment on the articles above them. They define difficult words, draw attention to unusual facts, and otherwise annotate the magazine's content.
On the last page of each issue is the "Old Cricket Says" column, in which Old Cricket offers a bit of wisdom, cracks a witticism, or introduces themes to be explored in the upcoming issues of Cricket. This recurring column has been ghostwritten by a number of authors and editors who worked for Cricket, but a preponderance of them were written by author Lloyd Alexander until his death in 2007. [4]
In 2003, Cricket Books published Celebrate Cricket: 30 Years of Stories and Art, a retrospective that republishes stories from the magazine and includes interviews with some of the founders and contributors.
Cricket was founded by a group of "historically minded writers and their artist and designer friends", led by Marianne Carus of Open Court Publishing. She had worked on "literature-based basic readers" for the school markets and had learned from teachers that there was a classroom demand for high-quality, short reading material. [5] The time was right for a "new St. Nicholas Magazine ". [6]
The founding Editorial Board (November 1972) comprised Carus, senior editor Clifton Fadiman, art director Trina Schart Hyman, prominent authors Lloyd Alexander, Isaac Bashevis Singer and Eleanor Cameron, Horn Book Magazine editor Paul Heins, "Kaye Webb (founder of Puffin Books and the doyenne of British publishers for children), Virginia Haviland (of the Library of Congress), and Sheila Egoff (Canada's leading authority in the field)." Fadiman was a well-known literary personality, a New Yorker book critic and a Book-of-the-Month Club judge. [6]
The inaugural issue went on sale January 1973 with a launch party in New York City. One guest later told Carus, "If a bomb had gone off during your party, the entire children's book world would've been wiped out." [7]
Cricket inspired a line of literary magazines for children of different ages: Babybug , Ladybug , Spider for newly independent readers, Cricket, and Cicada for young adults.
In turn, Cricket Media now publishes 15 children's magazines, including the five "insects". Most of them are issued nine times annually. [8]
Ages 14+
Ages 9–14
Ages 6–9
Ages 3–6
Babies–3 years
The Cricket Chatterbox is a forum on cricketmagkids.com/chatterbox where children around the Cricket age range (9-12, although there is no minimum or limit) gather to talk about different issues. It started as a forum about the magazine, but has grown to talk about many other insights, world issues, and other subjects. It was founded in 2008. Children who post on chatterbox (known as Chatterboxers or CBers) can start threads or post comments. Each of their posts are reviewed by a panel of three site administrators that make sure that the content is appropriate for the Cricket age range and that no personal information is shared. [9]
Isaac Bashevis Singer was a Polish-born Jewish-American novelist, short-story writer, memoirist, essayist, and translator. Some of his works were adapted for the theater. He wrote and published first in Yiddish and later translated his own works into English with the help of editors and collaborators. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978. A leading figure in the Yiddish literary movement, he was awarded two U.S. National Book Awards, one in Children's Literature for his memoir A Day of Pleasure: Stories of a Boy Growing Up in Warsaw (1970) and one in Fiction for his collection A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories (1974).
Lloyd Chudley Alexander was an American author of more than 40 books, primarily fantasy novels for children and young adults. Over his seven-decade career, Alexander wrote 48 books, and his work has been translated into 20 languages. His most famous work is The Chronicles of Prydain, a series of five high fantasy novels whose conclusion, The High King, was awarded the 1969 Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature. He won U.S. National Book Awards in 1971 and 1982.
Caddie Woodlawn is a children's historical fiction novel by Carol Ryrie Brink that received the Newbery Medal in 1936 and a Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958. The original 1935 edition was illustrated by Newbery-award-winning author and illustrator Kate Seredy. Macmillan released a later edition in 1973, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman.
The Carus Publishing Company, now subsumed into Cricket Media, was a publisher with offices in Chicago, Peterborough, New Hampshire and Peru, Illinois. Its Peterborough office was closed June 30, 2015. Its Peru offices have closed as well, and operations primarily occur in Chicago. It owns the Open Court Publishing Company as well as the Cricket Magazine Group, and Cobblestone Publishing. Open Court is known for their Popular Culture and Philosophy books, while Cricket and Cobblestone produce a range of children's magazines.
Trina Schart Hyman was an American illustrator of children's books. She illustrated over 150 books, including fairy tales and Arthurian legends. She won the 1985 Caldecott Medal for U.S. picture book illustration, recognizing Saint George and the Dragon, retold by Margaret Hodges.
Charlotte Zolotow was an American writer, poet, editor, and publisher of many books for children. She wrote about 70 picture book texts.
Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth was an American writer of fiction and poetry for children and adults. She won the 1931 Newbery Medal from the American Library Association award recognizing The Cat Who Went to Heaven as the previous year's "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children." In 1968 she was a highly commended runner-up for the biennial international Hans Christian Andersen Award for children's writers.
Saint George and the Dragon is a book written by Margaret Hodges and illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman. Released by Little, Brown, it was the recipient of the Caldecott Medal for illustration in 1985. The text is adapted from Edmund Spenser's epic poem The Faerie Queene.
Joanna Ruth Nichols was a Canadian writer of fiction for children and young adults, primarily historical fiction and historical fantasy.
Dutton Children's Books is a US publisher of children's books and a division of the Penguin Group. It is associated with the Dutton adult division. It was previously an imprint of E.P. Dutton, prior to 1986. They have been publishing books since 1852.
Figgie Hobbin: Poems for Children is a children's poetry collection written by the Cornish poet Charles Causley and first published in 1970. Since then it has gone through numerous reprints, including a notable version published in the United States in 1973, with illustrations by Trina Schart Hyman. It is dedicated to the artist Stanley Simmonds and his wife Cynthia.
Cobblestone is a magazine that is published by Cricket Media and part of Carus Publishing Company.
Spider is an illustrated literary magazine designed for children from 6 to 9 years old. Started in January 1994, the magazine is published in the United States by The Cricket Magazine Group, which is owned by the Carus Publishing Company. The headquarters of the magazine is in Chicago, Illinois.
Babybug is an illustrated magazine of literature and art for children ages 6 months to 3 years. It is published in the United States by The Cricket Magazine Group, a division of Carus Publishing Company, 9 times a year, every month except for combined May/June, July/August, and November/December issues.
Ladybug is an illustrated literary magazine for children ages 2 to 6. It is published in the United States by The Cricket Magazine Group/Carus Publishing Company, and appears 9 times a year, every month except for combined May/June, July/August, and November/December issues. The magazine is based in Chicago, Illinois.
Odyssey was a monthly science magazine for children ages 9–14, created by Richard Berry, editor of Astronomy. The magazine was published between 1979 and 2015. It was based in Peterborough, New Hampshire. The magazine was also headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Phyllis Louise Krasilovsky was an American writer of children's books.
Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins is a children's picture book written by Eric Kimmel and illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman in 1989. It features the Jewish folk hero and trickster figure Hershel of Ostropol challenging and defeating through guile a series of goblins over the course of the eight nights of Hanukkah, culminating in a showdown with the King of the Goblins himself on the final night. The book won a Caldecott Honor in 1990.
Marianne Carus was a German-born American editor and publisher known for creating the children's magazine Cricket.
Jason Chin is an author and illustrator of children's books. His books, which usually deal with science and nature, were the recipients of a Caldecott Medal, a Sibert Honor and a Orbis Pictus Award.
