Customer Reviews

Ladybug

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I love these magazines. We subscribe to Ladybug, Spider, and Cricket (each for a different child). The stories are great, as is the illustration. An illustrator friend of mine says that it is very prestigious to be asked to illustrate a story in these magazines, and I figure it is the same for the stories. No advertising, of course. The thing I like the best is that each magazine is geared toward a certain age of child. Highlights tries to be something for everyone, so we look through the magazine to find an appropriate story. In Ladybug, we just start at the beginning and read straight through. As the publisher will tell you, when your child outgrows Ladybug, you just let them know and they change your subscription to Spider (and later, Cricket. That's as far as we've gotten).

We received this magazine as a gift subscription last December. Beautiful illustrations and interesting short stories with large letters so they are easy for children to read. My daughter (age 4) can read some of them herself, my son (age 3) looks at the words and the pictures and listens to my daughter read and I have even enjoyed reading this magazine from time to time. This is a great children's magazine! I recommend this magazine for children who have just learned to read and for children and parents to read together.

Our girls received Ladybug for several years. The magazines are printed on high quality paper, but still after MANY reading, were in good shape.

A great benefit of LADYBUG is there is no advertising. The magazine is full of great illustrations, good site words and bright colors.

A great gift for your own children!

I LOVE this magazine, and more importantly my four year old daughter LOVES this magazine. I agree with all the other rave reviews on this page.

I do want other parents to be aware of one thing, though. This company sold my daughter's name and address to other companies and we have begun to receive inappropriate consumer catalogs addressed to her. Because no other company has her address, I called the customer service number on the back of Ladybug and spoke to a rep there. Her supervisor called back the next day - very professionally, and quite apologetic, and told me that yes, they did sell/give out my daughter's name and address. She then said she would remove my daughter's name from the list that they share/sell. I appreciated the call and the admission, however, I thought other parents might want to be aware of this.

A while back I read an interview with Maurice Sendak. He was talking about the last word in his book, "Where the Wild Things Are" and how "the entire staff at the publishing house were keen on changing the word "hot" to "warm" on the last page. Because "hot" meant "burn." He continues to say that the controversy over that one word "turned into a real world war." So why fight over one word? What's the difference between hot and warm, what does it matter? Sendak says warm sounded dopey, unemotional, undramatic, and that "everything about that book is 'hot'."

Well, in my opinion, everything about this magazine is warm. Tepid, even. Safe to the point of boring.

And that surprised me, truly.

You see, we have been receiving Babybug for a few years now. And as my 3 year old daughter began to outgrow it, Ladybug seemed like the next logical step. The only other Carus magazine I was familiar with was Cricket, circa the early 90's, and I was so impressed by it and the complex and interesting stories and non-fiction pieces it contained, and by Babybug as a sweet simple toddler publication, that I had pretty high hopes for Ladybug.

All of the other reviews - concerning the magazine, not the ordering process - are glowing in their praise. In fact the Amazon reviews contributed greatly to my decision to subscribe to the magazine.

What annoys me primarily about Ladybug is just how dumbed down it seems in contrast to both Babybug and Cricket - and to some extent to Spider, of which I've had the occasion to review a single issue. It's both the stories and poems themselves, as well as the language used. I mean, we have a library of nearly 1000 picture books, so we have a wide variety of reading tastes but in all the many, many books we own, spanning decades of children's literature, I can't conjure a single one that seems to be written with such cheesy condescension. The end result - and this is the crux of my dissatisfaction in this publication - is that the stories are unsatisfying, dry, dull, flat, and totally lifeless. Some of the poems just don't make much sense at all. The recurring themes like Max and Kate are certainly 'safe' but their value doesn't extend much beyond that. Also, I find the illustrations with Max and Kate to be quite unattractive, but a better storyline would grant them forgiveness on that count. Mop and Friends grates on my nerves terribly. Ugh. Even the cartoon Molly and Emmett, which, as a cat lover, I thought would be *fantastic!* just falls flat. Usually, in a publication like this, I would find one redeeming piece where I'd say, "Now why can't the rest of the magazine be like that?" and I might even hold out hope that future issues would be better, but after six months, I feel confident that I've seen the best they have to offer. I'm just not impressed. I don't think we've read most of our Ladybug magazines more than once - the day they arrive. They sit directly on our coffee table for the month after they arrive - and are ignored entirely - though I would happily read them with accompanying animation if it were requested of me. I often read books I loathe (with proper enthusiasm, I might add) because the kids love them but when it comes to Ladybug, they simply never ask.

My second issue is with the presentation - sometimes to excess - of multicultural themes. Don't take that sentence the wrong way, I certainly desire for my children to learn about other cultures, but my desire is for them to learn about them in a way that feels authentic, not forced and trite, and this is my feeling with the presentation of other cultures given by Ladybug. It feels like the publishers are just throwing this stuff at you out of a desire to be politically correct, but there's no real passion behind it. This is in such stark contrast to the Cricket magazines of the early 90's, which also presented pieces on other cultures - but did so in captivating, honest, 'real' ways which inspired young readers to want to learn more.

I began to write this review six months ago when we got our first issue, and shamed myself into keeping my rather harsh opinions to myself. Who would write such an ugly review about a sweet little kids magazine? Would you believe I actually feel guilty for disliking this magazine so much? But dislike it I do, and my kids' lack of interest in it seems to mirror my opinion.

I think it comes down to what Sendak fought for in the difference between hot and warm. When you go for something so safe that you intentionally avoid any real conflict, you miss out on the drama and danger and excitement - and even the relief of resolution at the end. All these fantastic emotional ranges that reading can draw out of a person. These are the things that have made the most timeless of stories endlessly appealing. These truths especially apply to kids. You don't have to scare the wits out of them, certainly not, but sometimes things have to be hot instead of warm. Sometimes that risk should be embraced for the sake of literary excellence, and respect for the reader.

My daughter began receiving Ladybug when she was 2 and has continued to enjoy it ever since (she's now almost 6). She was given a subscription to Spider last Christmas (another great magazine from this publishing group) but still returns to Ladybug. It's great for early readers as well as young preschoolers, with content that's adaptable to every age in the recommended range. I sometimes find my daughter sitting on the floor with all our saved issues spread around her, reading through them one by one!

Ladybug is full of useful resources for early childhood teachers and the material is useful even if the magazines are out of date. The ideas in the magazines can be modified for use in the classroom. I teach children from kindergarten to year three, so I need a wide range of suitable materials. Since I am also a parent, I really enjoyed borrowing the magazines for my daughter when she was small. She loved the magazines and when she grew out of them, she graduated to 'Cricket' which is the magazine that follows on from 'Ladybug'.Since 'Ladybug' contains lots of activities, stories and songs, it doesn't take long to build up a useful library of resources. What's more! The activities are age appropriate and they all work.

I've been subscribing to Ladybug for about 2 years now. It's a fantastic source of stories and to-do ideas for my 4-year-old.

Every month, my boy is excited to see a new issue show up in the mail. Each issue has a specific theme, but Ladybug also has several recurring features. This combination is a great way to introduce new topics in a familiar setting.

The writing is fresh and much more interesting to young minds than what you find in some other kids' magazines. Each story is well-illustrated. A given issue will have a variety of types of writing - cartoons, poems, songs, 4-5 page stories, ideas of things to do.

This magazine has been a great motivator for my son, and I recommend it highly.

I loved this magazine when I was little! I still remember how it felt to get my own mail! There were a lot of pictures to keep me entertained, and a lot of fun activities. I read it, or had it read to me, it when I was 4,5, and 6. Any little kid would like this magazine!

There are a number of magazines available for young children, but very few approach the quality of Ladybug. This monthly literary magazine for very young children aged 2-6 weighs in at about 35 pages and includes no advertising whatsoever.

Inside the typical issue you find poems, songs, short stories, a cut-out activity and other educational devices. The pages are all glossy color that include drawings of the subject at hand, often involving animals or the types of characters you might expect to find in a nursery rhyme or fable. The cut-out activity might involve constructing a scene or the pieces to simple board game.

Ladybug would be an excellent choice for most any young child whether they already enjoy reading or to help encourage them to do so. I also suggest you take a look at Zootles, a similarly high quality magazine where animals are the main theme for children in the same age group appropriate for Ladybug.