Highlights turns 60, but stays forever young
Goofus as a slothful senior citizen? Gallant as a geriatric goody-goody?
It's true. Highlights, the magazine that has brought fiction, poetry, puzzles, cartoons, scientific nuggets, and quiet lessons on life to several generations of children, turns 60 this month. Today, the one billionth copy of the magazine will be printed in Clarksville, Tenn. At some point it will undoubtedly turn up in a dentist's office near you.
Highlights being Highlights, the magazine is seizing on the milestone as a teachable moment for its young readers. According to editor Christine French Clark, the August issue will explain the concept of a billion this way: ``If Goofus stacked a billion children on his shoulders, they would reach the moon, wrap around the moon 11 times, stretch back to the earth, wrap around the earth five times, and there would be enough kids left over for 34,944 Little League teams." And, we might add, that's just the sort of stunt ne'er-do-well Goofus would try.
For Kent S. Johnson, the CEO of Highlights for Children and great-grandson of the magazine's founders, today will be a moment to look not at Hidden Pictures (a Highlights staple) but at the big picture. ``When you think of a billion copies of a magazine, that's not very inspiring," Johnson said. ``What's inspiring is when you think that a billion times a child went to their mailbox, opened it up, and had that excitement of finding a magazine with their name on it, and of jumping in and beginning their experience with literacy."
But the challenging reality for Highlights is that a lot of children nowadays are pulling other magazines out of the mailbox as well. In the age of Harry Potter, Highlights faces razzle-dazzle competition in a niche it once had more or less to itself. Publications such as Nickelodeon Magazine, Sports Illustrated for Kids, Ladybug, Cricket, and National Geographic Kids Magazine vie for children's attention. And then there are all the kid-focused TV channels, the blitzkrieg of new video games, and the gaudy circus that is the online world.
``Certainly kids are more distracted," Clark conceded. ``They certainly have more choices of what to do in their spare time. And we have had to react to that."
In response, Highlights has built an eye-catching website (HighlightsKids.com) with interactive games, including a ``Click and Play" version of the popular ``Hidden Pictures" feature from the magazine. The website notched more than 2 million page views in April, according to Johnson. CD-ROMs, board games, and book clubs such as Puzzlemania, Mathmania, and Which Way USA? have sprouted from Highlights. In recent months, the magazine has been splashed with more color and more pictures. The August issue will feature an updated logo and a new cover design, with ``cover lines" teasing stories inside the magazine. ``Even though we don't have a huge newsstand presence, we know that even on the coffee table in the living room there might be a few things competing with us," Clark said.
According to Mary Anne McDonald of Arlington, nothing can compete with Highlights for the attention of her 6-year-old daughter Meg, who immediately devours each issue when it arrives. ``She memorizes the jokes and puns and regales us with them for the entire month," wrote McDonald, adding that Meg ``doesn't give up" until she finds all the items in Hidden Pictures.
The magazine has showcased many writers new and established, including UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who wrote about a pivotal childhood experience. It has also created a gallery of familiar figures, two of whom, Goofus and Gallant, got an extreme makeover in January with a new artist and a more contemporary look.
Goofus is the boy who always does the wrong thing, and Gallant is the boy whose perfect comportment is supposed to make kids aspire to better behavior (though it inspires some to grind their teeth). The May issue is typical: ``Goofus ignores the new kid at school," the cartoon's text reads, followed by a friendly Gallant asking the new kid: ``Want to play?" Then, Goofus is seen with a mammoth, half-eaten hamburger and what appears to be a major tummy ache, complaining, ``Ugh, I ate too much." It is followed by a depiction of Gallant carrying a sparsely bedecked dish, as the caption notes primly that ``Gallant doesn't overload his plate with food."
Other Highlights features are more subtle in distinguishing between right and wrong and encouraging youngsters to be kind and considerate. ``Ask Arizona," a feature introduced a couple of years ago, uses stories to walk youngsters through the thickets of everyday dilemmas.
Clark says the magazine's goal is to ``make sure that every child who picks up a copy of Highlights sees his or her face in the pages, that they feel the magazine is edited for them."
That sensation was once all too literal for Clark's daughter. Several years ago, the girl, then 9 years old, was perusing a copy of Highlights while riding in a car with her mother. Goofus was depicted as forgetting to deliver an important message to his mother -- the same omission the girl had recently been guilty of.
Suddenly, Clark heard her daughter gasp. Then came the accusing cry from the back seat: ``You're using me as a model for `Goofus and Gallant!' "
Don Aucoin can be reached at aucoin@globe.com. 