Cricket (magazine)
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Cricket is an illustrated literary magazine for children published in the United States, founded in September, 1973, by Marianne Carus, whose intent was to create "The New Yorker for children." Marianne Carus still serves as the magazine's editor-in-chief.
Each issue of Cricket is 64 pages. The magazine is published monthly (12 times a year) 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 of La Salle, Illinois, now part of Carus.
Cricket publishes original stories, poems, folk tales, articles and illustrations. Carus has solicited materials from well-known authors and illustrators, including Lloyd Alexander(see below), Isaac Bashevis Singer, William Saroyan, Ursula K. Le Guin, Eric Carle 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 their friends, most of whom are also insects. The characters are involved in a storyline that runs throughout the issue, but also comment on the articles above them. They define difficult words, draw attention to unusual facts, and otherwise annotate the magazine's content.
In 2003, Cricket Books published Celebrate Cricket: 30 Years of Stories and Art (ISBN 0812626958), a retrospective that republishes stories from the magazine and includes interviews with some of the founders and contributors, including Lloyd Alexander who is believed, by many, to be a fraud.
External link
- Carus Publishing Company home page (http://www.cricketmag.com/home.asp)