My 11-year-old daughter has been a subscriber for about 1 ½ years and absolutely adores Discovery Girls. She reads it cover to cover the day it arrives in the mail. It provides a great mix of articles about issues that affect the 7-12 age group as well as fashion tips, celebrity interviews, quizzes and more all the things the girls are looking for in a magazine! The readers provide much of the content for the magazine so it is truly a forum for girls to express themselves as well as an opportunity to see that other girls are having the same experiences. As a parent, I like the magazine because it is completely appropriate for the "tween" girl great content in the articles (real topics about real issues), limited advertising and the "models" are readers who are chosen by their answers on a questionnaire, not by the way they look. It's nice for girls who are beginning to worry about body image to be able to see normal girls just like them in the pages of a national magazine. I would definitely recommend this magazine to anyone who knows a girl in the 7-12 age range!
I am a media specialist at public school. I am in charge of ordering various media including magazines for our library. Discovery Girls was first sent to me as a sample. Upon reviewing the contents I quickly decided this was a keeper and ordered a subscription for my students.
I is so nice to see someone publishing a magazine where teen girls are presented as wholesome, age-appropriate teen girls and not as exploited, skin-bearing women. I had been hoping for years for a magazine like this. Discovery Girls is packed with topics appealing to teens. The layout is vivid and attracting. If you are concerned about content and role models for teen girls then this is the magazine you have been waiting for.
Buy Discovery Girls (1-year) Now
I've gotten about half a dozen issues of Discovery Girls, and every time I finished reading it, I came away dissapointed. The way DG writes sounds like a popular girl or an MTV show host talking. Discovery Girls focuses far too much on boys, fashion, makeup, and celebrities. It says right on the cover, "A Magazine for girls ages 7 and up." I know that when I was 7, I did not even think about dating boys, wearing makeup, how cool my clothes were, or whether I owned the latest CD by a singer. However, Discovery Girls puts little or sometimes even no focus on more important elements in life, such as school and family. I have found that DG even subtly hints that school and family are not important. For example, I quote, "an endless day of school" and "your parents had less complicated lives when they were tweens, so do they understand all that you're going through?" which disgusted me immensly. When school is mentioned, it is usually a page of advice on what do if a friend is going boy-crazy, or a "crash-course lesson on school supplies," which brings me to my next point.
Discovery Girls is chock-full of advertisements that annoy me greatly. In addition, the "product reccomendation and reviews" pages reccomend the same products that were advertised. This leads me to believe that Discovery Girls does not geniunely think that the products they reccomend are worth buying; they simply are endorsing the products they are paid to advertize, which I find extremely misleading. The products they advertize are also pretty expensive, for example a small chest of drawers that cost over $60. This might trigger some girls into nagging their parents into buying them things that they just saw in a magazine and thought, "Well, if Discovery Girls thinks it's cool, then it's cool, so I want it!" which will be a waste of money for the parents.
One of the most disgusting parts of Discovery Girls magazine is that they often hint that there are only two types of girls: The high-fashion, glamorous actress who loves pink and purple, and the sporty, gym-class-loving athlete. I'm not exactly sure what they are trying to promote here, but there is only one word to describe what is going on here: STEREOTYPING. I find that utterly horrible, and especially in a magazine for girls ages 7 and up. This will make 7-year-olds believe that if they aren't glamorous or sporty, they will fade into oblivion. I know that for sure I am neither, and am having no pre-teenage crises at the moment because I do not conform to these standards. To further support my point, I will give one example that stands out in my mind: there was an issue that featured a craft article on locker decorating. Sounds pretty harmless. However, there were only two themes presented: the "glamor girl," whose theme was pink, purple, and fake jewels, and the "super sports star," whose theme comprised of soccer balls and fake medals. This made me feel incredibly happy to be who I was, seeing that I am in neither camp and yet still "mysteriously" managed to be happy and lead a decent life.
There is a "Spotlight on [name of sport]" in every issue, which can be interesting, right up to the point where there is a subheading reading "What you'll need." A few issues ago, the article was on basketball, and the "what you'll need" was all of expensive Nike shoes and sports equipment. Girls who read the article will subconsciously be pressured into thinking, "I play basketball. I need expensive name-brand clothes and sports equipment," which is absolutely not true. Moderately-priced sports clothing and equpiment will work just as well as the more pricey equipment. A couple dozen issues back, LIP GLOSS was advertized on the sports page! I think this was in a highly inappropriate place, seeing that there was a message saying, "Don't forget to wear Lip Smackers lip balm while you're playing tennis!" That was the most shocking part of it. It was totally obvious that Smackers paid Discovery Girls to endorse their product, which is highly dissapointing. Plus, the "What you'll need" does not even need to be there. I am perfectly confident in saying that girls ages 7 and up know that you need a basketball and shoes to play basketball!
As my mom sometimes says, kids and teenagers are "the blind leading the blind." Discovery Girls has advice pages, but the advice is written by girls ages 7-12. Now, I think some of the advice given is not very helpful, and girls reading the advice would be better off asking a parent or trusted adult for advice. If the problem is so serious that it is worth it to send the problem in to a magazine and get it published to get advice, I think the advice should come from a responsible adult, or at least be better.
In addition, there is always a "fashion" section in the magazine, which spans over a few pages, bearing pictures of blondes wearing name-brand clothes and thumbnails of jewelry, accessories, and high-fashion items. I think that tweens are exposed enough to pop culture and are pressured daily at school to wear makeup and buy high-fashion, expensive clothes. Why promote it more in a magazine? On the subject of clothes and fashion, the "Beauty" section does not promote makeup or shaving, but it does talk about hairstyles and other issues like that. This kind of topic may be well-suited for girls ages 10 and up, who are starting to be interested in things like that, but for 7-, 8and 9-year-olds? I think not. Girls that young don't need to worry about things like that yet; growing up happens too fast anyway. They should just enjoy the time they have to be a kid.
Overall, I do admit that once in a while I find an article or a quiz I enjoy reading that has a decent moral. However, the overall message the magazine gives to girls is one similar to fashion and gossip magazines, only translated into a language that girls 8 and up can understand. I don't reccomend it.
P.S.: Instead of Discovery Girls, I HIGHLY reccomend American Girl magazine... it's more appropriate, has NO ADVERTISEMENTS, well-written and fun to look at articles, good advice, and fun projects and crafts that are unique and don't look like they were found on the internet. American Girl is a far better magazine!
Read Best Reviews of Discovery Girls (1-year) Here
A ground-breaking magazine when it first came out, Fast Company kind of fell apart after the Dot-Com bubble. It was almost like they stopped employing journalists. Now it seems to be finding its way again by focusing on leadership, entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity rather just on the latest technology craze (there are blogs for that). This is a worthwhile subscription to have if you are interested in what's happening now and what's next in today's information economy.
