Muse‘s publisher, Carus Publishing, also puts several other magazines. We’re curious: Do you read them? Did you ever? Do you even know anything about them? If so, what do you think?
For reference, the magazines are as follows:
The Cricket Magazine Group
– “Bug” magazines: Babybug, Ladybug, Spider, Cricket, and Cicada
– Nonfiction magazines: Click, Ask, and Muse
The Cobblestone Magazine Group
Appleseeds, Calliope, Cobblestone, Dig, Faces, Footsteps, Odyssey
I read Ladybug a bunch when I was little. That’s the one that is cardboard right? I have wanted to get Calliope, but I haven’t for some reason. Why is Cicada crossed off?
First post!!!!!!!!! Yes, I used to read Ask. But Muse is a lot better.
I’ve heard that Cicada is being discontinued and that the publisher is no longer accepting new subscriptions.(Footsteps was discontinued last year.)I got Calliope last year, it was okay… kinda boring, and I like history so i don’t know… I’m getting Faces this year, I’ve already gotten one magazine and I like it a lot better, but i’ll see when my subscription continues.
I am kinda picky about magazines, I don’t like most of them but I do like Muse and Newsweek, and I read them thoroughly and like them a lot, so i don’t know if the fact that I don’t like Calliope means anything about it being good or bad
My sis and I got Spider and Ladybug when we were the right ages, and then we got Cricket till my subscription expired, but that’s okay because Cricket isn’t that good anymore. I kind of want to get Calliope, but not right now.
I got Spider for a while but I started getting Muse and I was outgrowing Spider anyway. My sister read Ladybug and I think maybe Cricket but she doesn’t get it anymore.
Cricket isn’t as good as it once was. I think that it was sort of a mistake to put it in color. I’m not sure why. The little comic strip at the bottom hasn’t made me laugh since I reread the December 1999 issue. The stories aren’t as good either, somehow, and they put too much scientific stuff in. Scientific stuff is all very well, but I’ve always thought of Cricket as a story magazine. It seems almost like I’m growing out of it, but when I reread the old ones, from the seventies or even the nineties, they’re so much better.
my favorites are odyssey, cricket, and cobblestone. BUT MUSE RULES ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I got Spider and cricket. I bought a subscription to Cicada, but if it is being discontinued, I don’t know…
I got my first issue of Odyssey today.
(9) If they’re still selling subscriptions to Cicada, then maybe they changed their minds.
(7) How has Cricket changed, apart from color? I admit that I’m not very familiar with it, but I’m interested in your long-term perspective.
When I was little I loved getting Ladybug from the library. Molly and Emmett were awesome. After I had been getting Muse for a while, I got Cricket for a year, but I thought it was pretty boring. I was kind of a shame because I thought it’d be as good as Muse, and when I brought the January 2003 issue off a newstand or someplace, I loved it. But all the following issues just didn’t interest me. I also tried Faces (this time from the library), but I didn’t like that either.
I’m not really suprised they’re discontinuing Cicada. I always wondered why they needed both that and Cricket. Don’t the suggested ages overlap a little? Suggested ages… gr. I think they should change Muse to 9 and up, not 9 to 14. When my mom worked at the middle school library, she suggested the school subscribe to Muse because she knew I loved it. So what did they do? Get a Smithsonian subscription for the middle school, and Muse for the elementary school! Agh!
Before, and for a little while during, my reading of Muse I was reading Ranger Rick by NWF. Itwaz great, and I was even on their advice board thing where they would e-mail you with questions about the magazine and ask if I was happy…I liked it!
Someone gave me a subscription to odyssey, but it wasn’t nearly as good as Muse so after the first couple of issues we called them and asked to have the rest added so I would get Muse for longer…
I have faces and I don’t like it much. I find it pretty boring I reaaaaaly wanted a subscription to Cicada. WAaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!! My dad says cuz I’m 12 I can’t…
10- Well, whoever does the comic strip isn’t too good at it (sorry to say), and . . . I can’t really explain it.
I used to get Cricket. A year or so ago. The science facts were somewhat uninteresting and below age level. The stories were something to read. I never liked it as much as Muse, even before I got into the blog and waiting with baited breath the whole last week of the month.
Re: suggested ages. I’m against them. I never listen to age suggestions in reading, though. I’ve gotten Muse since I was in first or second grade, probably, and even though I didn’t fully understand it, it was still interesting and I love looking back on those issues now. And I intend to keep getting it for as long as possible. Maybe in college I’ll stop because it’ll seem weird to get a kids magazine. I hope not. Anyway, I think I was saying that if you want to get something but you’r the wrong age, it shouldn’t matter.
Discontinuing Cicada? Great. u_u That’s the other one to which I’m subscribed.
15- HEAR, HEAR! Ignore recommended ages.
I’m just waiting till I go on an intergenerational elderhostel. I will read Muse at every possible opportunity, and hopefully get some people interested. Sadly, there are only two kids signed up. My dad said he would drag along some local kids too, though, so maybe I’ll get my chance at advertising anyways.
I get Muse (duh!), Dig, and Ranger Rick (my subscription STILL hasn’t expired! grrr). Muse is definately the best.
The reasons I look forward to getting Muse more than the other magazines I recieve:
1.The Muses are funny
2.Muse covers many interesting topics
3.Ranger Rick is for kids much younger than I am*
4.Dig covers only one topic the entire issue, so it is not unlike reading textbooks
5.randomness!!!
6.The articles are well written
7.oh, I don’t know. Muse is awesome
Those aren’t in any order, by the way.
*I used to love to get Ranger Rick when I was younger.
(16) Sorry! I’m probably wrong about that. If they haven’t informed subscribers, then it must not be true. I’ll remove the “strikethrough” commands.
Though Muse is definitely my favorite, I get Cricket, Calliope and Odyssey. Cricket has very good stories, but their non-fiction isn’t very interesting. Calliope is good for in-depth history, but sometimes I’m not very interested in the topic. I really like Odyssey. It reminds me of Muse, but it is all science and more serious. Luckily, my Science Bowl coach let us spend a ton of time reading Odyssey to prepare for the national competition. Muse didn’t have enough science for her.
Odyssey is all right, but Muse is 9.3622536 times better.
I used to get Dig. But, it just wasn’t… Well, when you read it, it kind of felt like you weren’t getting the whole story. All right, so it’s interesting that all the people in the village died when this volcano erupted, now tell me what you tell the adults, without thinking “it’s just a kid. It won’t understand.” I was eight and nine, and I knew that it was talking down to me.
GO MUSE!
Oh, I used to get Ranger Rick, but i thought that it was down talking of animals. I can’t explain it. I borrowed a couple of issues of Cricket and Oddesey from the Library, but they looked rather bad next to Muse.
17~ Would your intergenerational Elderhostel have anything to do with a tall ship? Just wondering. (If it’s the schooner Zodiac, you’ll love it.)
I used to get Spider, and I LOVED it. I used to read “Kate and Toady” religiously when it came. [they don’t even have Kate and Toady anymore, shows how long ago that was…] But then I went to Cricket, and I am still getting it. Then my Mom thought, hmm, these other magazines look pretty good too… So she got me subscriptions to Calliope, Coblestone, Odyssey, Faces, Dig, Footsteps [when it was still around], and Muse. I was grateful, but not enthraled. When I first started getting them all, I liked pretty much all of them. But I wasn’t too impressed with Muse at first. *GASP* However, now it is my favourite. The history magazines sometimes come up with a neat time period that I’m interested in, for example, the French and Indian war issue was really good for Cobblestone. Faces is good, but nothing I’m totally enthralled about.
Sometimes I feel talked down to because they underline words that they think you won’t understand, like, siege one time I think. Come on, that’s not a hard word.
Despite those downfalls, I’d much rather see another child or teen reading one of these magazines than your run of the mill teen magazines that are devoted to promoting a increasingly less moral culture.
Muse is my favourite because it doesn’t dumb down the writing. It expects the reader to exert some sort of effort to understand the material being presented. That is the only way to effectivelly learn anything. If writing for chidren and teenagers is reduced to senseless “baby talk” it doesn’t help anyone. It will fusterate some people and make others think that they are not worth real respect, even in their reading material. And for others it will say that you don’t need to think, we’ll just simplify everything for you. That’s not going to make anything easier. That’ll only produce poeple who are unable to think when here’s nobody there to tell them what to do. End of rant.
And age limits? They’re stupid. I used to read books that were for older kids, and I loved them. I’ve also gotten blasted by other people [my grandmother] that I don’t read books “my age”. I don’t even remember what I was reading, but some young adult book, and my grandma sees this and remarks, “well, I’m glad you’re finally reading up to your age level.” I still love reading children’s books, yet I love reading books that few 15 year olds would ever consider reading unless they were forced to.
One more comment, (I know this is getting REALLY long.)
MUSE IS THE BEST!!!!!!!!!
Sorry that was so incredibly LONG!!!!
24- No, I’m kayaking on the [snip] river with my dad. He’s a kayak guide.
26-Yea, that would be something they would snip. People could look up the river and not only know the area you live in, but who your dad is. BUt that’s why we have GAPAs, to make sure nothing gets through that we might regret later…
Cont. from my previous post.
I always ask him to drag me along on the intergens, and this time, since there are only two kids signed up, he decided that I was going to come on all of the days including those when we just go to museums.
27- I snipped it myself. It’s an awfully big river, but technically you could look it up, and possibly even discover my town, in time for me to move.
My siblings get Click, and they absolutely detest it. The copies I have seen have all been boring, and written in a condescending manner. I think that the musers could do a much better job making a magazine for that age group…
I sometimes take out copies of Cicada from the library, and when I was younger I read Spider, and loved it. I have to say, though, Muse is (Of course) my favorite.
(27) Just try not to make us work too hard at it, all right?
31-I hope I haven’t ever posted anything that needed snipping! I don’t even say my name…
31- I don’t think I’ve ever posted anything snippable. I thought maybe you would snip one thing that I said, but no one said anything, and I’m not even sure you could track me with it, besides, since no one knows what it is, I am perfectly safe. I snip anything myself that I think the GAPAs would snip. (I.E., my last name, where I live, the river.)
24- Midnight Fiddler, which coast do you live on? Because the Schooner Zodiac is on the west coast, and I thought you lived on the east coast.
No, I checked, and you said you live an hour away from DC. Weird. Sort of. There is such a thing as travel, after all.
I read Cricket.
I have read every single Carus magazine ever. I’m not kidding, either. Maybe not every issue, because the Cobblestone crew is boring as all heck for the most part. Still. I’m lame.
I skim Cricket, I guess. It used to be a lot better, I think, or else I’m just outgrowing it. I’m not sure. It seems like they’ve been trying to make it educational rather than interesting, adding in badly-written nonfiction and squeaky-clean modern fiction meant to teach a lesson. There are also far too many unicorns. They are boring. Iunno, it seems like they’ve been slowly dumbing down Cricket since Cicada came on the scene.
Cicada, I have a love-hate relationship with you. Either I’m plowing through an issue in record time because I can’t wait to read every bit of it, or I’m plowing through an issue in record time because I’m skipping half the stories. I like Cicada because there’s no nonfiction and because it’s far less censored than any of the other magazines.
Muse=<3, mostly.
I used to get Spider. I loved it, but I don’t remember much about it. My sister got Cricket, but I never read it much.
Muse Muse Muse Muse Muse Muse Muse Muse Muse Muse Muse Muse Muse Muse Muse Muse Muse Muse Muse Muse Muse Muse Muse Muse Muse Muse Muse Muse. That’s what me, my dog, and little brother used to chant as we led a parade through the house at the arrival of every issue.
They’re all O.K. if you get the right age group. However, Muse is the best because of the many different kinds of articles in one issuse and the sarcasm.
37-What does “Muse= less than 3” mean?
39-That’s funny! But you have to pay a lot more to get the GIGANTIC, HEAVY, LONG [/sarcasm] magazine shipped over there, don’t you?
41- She meant Muse=love, smart one….
41-
That was really weird. All it said is 41.
44-Did it say something when you hit submit???
42-I still don’t understand, how does “less than three” mean that? I don’t know these little code things…
“<3” looks like a sideways heart with its pointy bottom to the left.
(39) The dog, too? That’s scary.
I just got an issue of Odyssey, and I thought it was a bit young.
40- Ranger Rick makes fun of animals. That’s not ok.
41- Actually, it’s being mailed to my grandparents, who then mail all of them to me as a birthday gift. *sigh* I never can enter any contests.
42-Yeah. Smart one.
43-huh?
44- What did you want to say?
45-Have you never seen one of those?
46- Get used to it.
47- I didn’t like Oddesey either.
Muhahahahahaha! Phase 2 has begun! Muhahahahaha! *cough, cough*
I got Ask for it’s very first year. I have the premire issue and all the early ones. The premire issue was so weird compared to the other issues. It was almost like a different mag. Different columns, comics, formats…it was weird.
48 – Ranger Rick once had a cartoon picture of a skunk holding a picket sign in front of a smoky factory. The picket sign read, “Don’t stink up our air”.
50- Was it better or worse than usual?
51-There was a really bad one in there, but I can’t remember it.
i would be incredibly sad if Cicada was discontinued, its by far my favorite mag (Muse is a close second though, just because ive never been extremely interested in science. i have to say that muse is the first magazine that has made science actually interesting and fun for me to read)
Anyway my mom gave me a subscription to Cicada for my 15th birthday (two years ago) and whenever one comes i immediatly read most of it in one or two days, (usually skipping one or two boring looking stories). then i eagerly wait for the next one. all my other magazines are stacked in piles of back issues i never got to. Cricket simply got too boring for me, after i had over a years worth of magazines that i never read more than one or two stories, i just gave them all to my little sister
sorry to double post but i forgot to mention that i have grown up with “Bug” magazines, and that i used to love Cricket before it got boring. I actually got the first Baby Bug issue ever when i was really little. i loved some poem in it about a bug under a rug or something. then i got Ladybug for a long time, then Spider (i used to love the little cartoon about the library in a hot air balloon or something and i LOVED the old spider cartoons before they just started defining words not having actual plots)…
Question for all: Has Cricket changed, or have your tastes just changed as you’ve gotten older? Have you noticed the magazine itself changing over the years, or do you see differences when you look at old issues? Just curious.
55- Both.
I got Ladybug through Cricket. I never got Cicada. I don’t subscribe to anything but Muse anymore, though.
When I was little I got Spider. I loved it.
Spider is a good one.
We get Dig, Odessy and Muse. My mom subscribed to them all at the same time. It seems to me that Dig is for slightly younger kids than Odessy, and Odessy for slightly younger than Muse. (I didn’t read the “suggested ages”, honest!) I’m not so interested in archeology, (sp?) so I sometimes get bored when I read Dig. But I find Odessy very interesting, if not a little dry in comparision to Muse. Definately the best thing about Muse is the clever, random, witty humor, applied to useful, interesting, fact-filled articals. I have never found another magazine that even comes CLOSE to Muse. And I’m truly not saying that because this is Muses blog- I’ve thought so since the first month the three magazines started coming.
Dig is for younger children, Oddessey is, in my opinion, a kind of wannabe-muse. Muse is deffinately the best magazine available to children. My dad gets home before I do, so he checks the mail. it ammuses me to see an adult sitting on the couch reading Muse. He says the articles are interesting. Why, I want to know, is he then also reading Kokopelli and company?!
Please, please, people, please continue to encorage the editors to keep up the good work.i find that the articles that are written because we musers don’t light a candle to the muse classics. For instance, the cat and dog issues were rather bad next to the Napolian, Black Death, and ettiquette and clothing issues. I would advise my fellow musers to stop requesting articles, but I know it wouldn’t do any good. However, I still think Muse is best when it is completely random and dreamed up by our genius editors.
That’s another point. muse may not really be created by the editors. what if Muse is a strannge being, supernatural, and its essence possesses the editors so that they create top-notch stuff?!
53- You dare to insult Muse on a MUSE-BLOG! An army of HTBs are being sent to havea nice chat with you.
Your Friend Who Means Know Offence,
Vixen.
There. Don’t you feel strangely more Pro-Muse?
BEWARE THE HOT PINK BUNNIES! THEY HAVE POWERS THAT WE HAVE NEVER DREAMED OF!
NOoooooooo! My hordes!
I never really liked Koko. and co. it was pretty boring.
Do the Muse editors ever come on here to see what their readers think? It seems like it would help them come up with ideas people would be interested in, though they do do a very good job on their own
I get Muse, Cicada and used to get Spider, and Cricket.
REBEL AGAINST SUGGESTED AGES!!!!
65-*rebels* I have always thought they are giving either ages that are too old or too young… Sometimes they make you read stuff that should be for little kids, and sometimes they make you NOT read stuff you could understand… I started getting Muse, a “10 and up” mag, when I was five!!!
64-One of the GAPAs said one time. I think it was a hidden “no”.
We get Odyssey. I noticed that a lot of the time it has articles on subjects similar to muse a month or two after mse comes out (in the Copycat issue there was a thing on mirror nuerons, a little while later ther was a shorter one in Odyssey, ect). It’ not nearly as cool as Muse though.
here is my list from best to worst
1.Muse
2.Cricket
3.Cobblestone
4.Calliope
5.Spider
6.Click
7.Ladybug
8.Odyssey
9.Faces
10.Dig
i have no tried:
Ask
Babybug
Appleseeds
Cicada
Alice~ I do live on the East coast. Well, not really on the coast, but you know what I mean…. But I went on the Schooner Zodiac last summer with my grandmother. I just wondered if that was what you were doing since you have an interest in tall ships…
My dad always steals my magazines. Odyssey doesn’t remind me of Muse at all. Muse is devoted to all sorts of subjects, not just science. Odyssey sometimes gets a bit too Sci-Fi ish. For example, the “Futuristic clothes” was sort of a joke. Dig is cool, but I’m not really all that interested in archeology. Cobblestone is good, but sometimes a bit too dry. Calliope is the same.
I think that the way I read Cricket has changed. It does seem like they have been putting more nonfiction in about science in particular. That’s disappointing, since it’s supposed to be a literature magazine. And some of their storys seemto be a bit more childish, but maybe thats how I’m reading them.
Usually I let my dad take the other magazines to read, but he only gets Muse when I’m done with it. I use my Muse collection as a sort of encyclopedia. Koko and Co. is always the last thing I read, if I even do. I’m not really to crazy about it. And I don’t really like Kokopelli. Mimi is my favourite.
I read the whole thing cover to cover. Koko and Co. used to be utterly hilarious, but I don’t care that much anymore. Out of all the regular stuff, the first page was my favorite. Or at least until the Anniversary. Why does Muse lose so many good things as soon as I get a subscription?
Does anyone get Cobblestone? I was thinking of getting it, but I would like to know if it’s good before I subscribe to it. (obviosly not as good as Muse).
53: interesting. I do like to hear other opinions once in a while.
70. The first page is usually my favourite, too. I remember the first time I ever saw a Muse, the first page was about toe fungus or something, and I read it about 4 times and had to stop because I was laughing so hard
72- I liked the one about Panacea.
Panacea.
For hangnails. It works. If you give it enough time.
Notscape was good too. And the alien/human checkpad.
Can the creature:
a. Change a twenty?
b. Change a twenty into a pile of dripping green goo by zapping it with its pizza cutter?
Oh my god, if I don’t stop I swear I’ll recite all the first pages I’ve ever read.
I wish that I could get every Muse ever published… *sigh*
73 – Yea.
“Major side effects may include heart palpitations, a forceful exhalation of the lungs, an occasional yawn, and an uncontrollable urge to laugh at people speaking Esperanto. Do not use Panacea if you are being treated for any of the following: the common cold, cold hands, hot hands, hot head, dry skin, fingernail biting, or cooties. If you suffer from hangnails, you should not take Panacea. If panacea is taken daily for a century or more, death may result. Panacea. For hangnails. It works. If you give it enough time. ”
The Panacea thing was SOOOOOOOO funny!
75- Me too.
75 – Join the club. *sigh*
Oh, and the Ble thing was funny too. You take a scentence, extract a few letters, and throw away the rest. Here was one of their examples:
Glefm = I’m so glad I’m saving energy by not using my facial muscles.
76, 79, I never saw any of those pages. I can’t belive that there are 6 years worth of Muse that I’ve never read. That seems like such a loss. My life could be so different if I could just read them. Life doesn’t seem worth living without those treasure troves of information.
*dies*
*remembers that if I die that I’ll miss all future issus of Muse*
*subsequently comes back to life*
76- *helpless laughter*
But it’s funny. 
79- I missed that one.
79~ m too. Th ws m fst mgzin of muse. Ble s fn. Almst good s pg ltn. [Me too, that was my first magazine of Muse. Ble is fun, almost as good as Pig Latin.] Just in case you couldn’t understand the Ble.
Hey, we should have a ble and pig latin thread!!!!!! PLEASE?
Leasepay? plz? *begs*
81 – Panacea is actually the name of the Greek goddess of medicine. That was pretty sneaky whoever wrote that.
83- It’s also something that makes you feel better, but doesn’t actually help, it just makes you feel better because you’re taking medicine.
(84) That’s a placebo (from the Latin word “I please”). A panacea is a remedy that cures everything.
85- Oh. I’d better tell my mum that. Unless, of course, she already knew,and I just mixed up Placebo with Panacea.
I get Cricket, but nothing else.
76- *laughs so much he coughs blood onto his keyboard* Yeah, that issue was great.
82- Hey, yeah! That would be FUn!
79- how does that work? I guess I didn’t see that article
88 – You take a scentence you’re going to say, take a few letters, and throw away the rest.
When is the science project due? = Scidue?
The science project is due on Thrusday. = scidueth.
But that’s only one day from now! = Bthonday!
13- I’m 12 And I’m getting Cicada.
The only thing I’ve heard about Cicada is that the submissions office is closed so the entries can be cleared out.
My brother gets Ask, but Muse is the only Carus magazine I get. I occasionally read others at the library, but Muse is by far the best!
91-I didn’t know you have a brother!!!
92 – Yep, he’s 7. He actually posted here a few times, under “Karrdash,” but he lost interest after a few weeks. (The attention span of a 6/7-year-old: really excited about something and want to do it for hours on end….and then no interest at all). He still reads Muse, though.
My mom got Spider out of the library for me when I was little, though. I think I liked it, but I don’t remember. I probably did.
I got Click when I was younger, then Spider, then Cricket and Muse at the same time. I agree with the others who have said that Cricket has decreased in quality, which is why I stopped subscribing.
).
Now I’m getting Muse, mental_floss (recommended to all of you), and Seventeen (cus Teen People asploded.
I used to get Cicada, then I cancelled my subscription. Everything was always the same, moronic passepartout stories about racial differences, cultural tolerance and adolescent problems.
95- Yeah, I got maybe two issues and then stopped. It just wasn’t very good.
I started subscribing to Muse in 2004. Unfotunately, I wasn’t impressed enough by it to continue. In 2005, I subscribed to Calliope. During that time I fianally became addicted to Muse, so I begged my mother to get me resubscribed to Muse the following year. So in 2006 , Igot back to dear Muse . But she also got me subscribed to odysey. and guess what? I didn’t like it much. Its only issue I enjoyed was the one on languages. So I let that one pass away. Also, I decided to start on Dig in 2007. But I thought about resubscribing to Calliope this year. But in the end, I got myself into three magazines this year. Muse, Calliope, and Dig. My faviorite is obvisouly Muse, second, Calliope, third, Dig.So Odysey is my least faviorte magazine I’ve read so far.