WEEKLY READER
The Weekly Reader (1902– ) has changed its name over the
years but not its mission to teach children American values while informing them. Editors today explain that the
magazine’s purpose has always been to teach children how
to think, not what to think. Nevertheless, many stories then
and now celebrate the power of optimism, the inevitability of overcoming poverty through hard work, as well as
the cost of patriotism and the healing efficacy of serving
others.
Until recently, the newspaper often avoided harsh subjects unless extensive media coverage made such efforts
futile. One topic that was impossible to steer clear of,
though, was the Cold War. The Weekly Reader introduced
many boys and girls to the U.S.-Soviet conflict in the 1950s
and 1960s. Maps prominently displayed the Iron Curtain
countries of the Soviet bloc. And when other types of grim
stories appeared, they offered hope often in the form of a
child empowered by quick thinking, integrity, and persistence to make a difference.
Charles Palmer Davis created the forerunner of Weekly
Reader, Current Events, in 1902 because only two of his
daughter’s twenty-four classmates in the one-room schoolhouse in Agawam, Massachusetts, could name the U. S.
president, William McKinley. The former newsman decided
to devote his life to helping young people learn what was
going on in the world. Current Events was published twenty
five times during the school year for middle and high school
students.
On May 20, 1902, the first headline, “AWFUL VOLCANO ERUPTION Thirty Thousand People Lost Lives in
One Minute. St. Pierre, Martinique, in Ruins. It is the Worst
Volcanic Eruption Since the Destruction of Pompeii,” may
have been shocking for middle school and high school students, but one of the three survivors of the disaster, a little
girl, Havivra Da Ifrile, peered into the smoking crater just
minutes before it exploded. Her quick thinking and perseverance enabled her to escape to a cave along the coast
where she had often played pirates with the other kids. She
saw the rivers of lava engulf her friends and neighbors as
she fled but, nevertheless, remained hopeful even during the
showers of flaming embers that burned her and charred her
little boat. The French cruiser, Suchet, rescued the unconscious girl, who had drifted two miles out to sea in the
seared and battered dingy. Of course, this story reflected
American belief in the power of positive thinking as well as
respect for underdogs who beat incredible odds.
Children as newsmakers, not victims or individuals too
inexperienced to matter, appear repeatedly in the pages of
Current Events and later My Weekly Reader. Perhaps, this
sensitivity to his readers’ need to feel important inspired
Davis to choose stories, like the crowning of the boy Spanish King, which also ran in the first edition. Over time, these
messages reminded students that everyone—no matter how
young or powerless—can contribute to society as well as
overcome formidable obstacles.
Demand for news of current events skyrocketed. In 1917,
Davis incorporated his company, American Education
Press, and relocated to Columbus, Ohio. Prosperity generated new publications, including Current Science in 1927,
a paper published sixteen times a year for middle-school
students. A year later, Current Events became My Weekly
Reader.
A teacher and reading expert who was director of elementary schools in York, Pennsylvania, Eleanor Johnson,
was the founder and editor-in-chief of the Weekly Reader.
She took over on September 21, 1928, and extended the
reach of the publication to elementary school students. She
mixed morals freely with news, translating complex issues
into terms children could understand. For example, the first
headline in My Weekly Reader, “TWO POOR BOYS WHO
MADE GOOD ARE NOW RUNNING FOR THE HIGHEST OFFICE IN THE WORLD!” converted the presidential race into a Horatio Alger plot. Diligence, a bit of
luck, and lots of determination enabled the heroes, Herbert
Hoover and Al Smith, to prevail.
Interspersed amid the news items were poems, cartoons,
and adages (reminiscent of the didactic McGuffey Eclectic Readers) that instructed children in health and social
mores. For example, this item ran in the first issue: “Our
little Buddy is robust and ruddy/Disease germs he knows
how to foil/For just like a man, he takes all he can/From a
bottle of cod-liver oil.”
Occasionally, appeals for cultural unity took a grim turn.
In fact, in 1935, a sketch depicted a skull labeled “Death”
eating an endless stream of humans while Mars, the grinning god of “War” waved his sword. It accompanied an
article, “The League Acts for Peace.” This time, no miracle
child saved the day. After a frank essay about humanity’s
penchant for killing to expand territory, the piece ended
with this question, “Will the League of Nations be able to
bring peace and order to a troubled world?”
In 1940, My Weekly Reader added the tag line “The
Junior Newspaper” to its masthead. Of course, the stories
shifted with the times from isolation in the late 1930s to support of World War II after Pearl Harbor. Articles applauded
technology increasingly from the 1950s to the present. In
the 1980s, the Weekly Reader began reporting on controversial subjects without giving them a happy ending. For
instance, in 1982, the Weekly Reader ran a banner headline: “Unemployment: Over 11 Million U. S. Workers Are
Unemployed.” The story ended bleakly: “‘Its like death, but
you go on breathing,’ says one unemployed worker.”
Since 1902, an estimated eighteen billion copies of the
Weekly Reader have circulated in classrooms teaching children to draw conclusions about the consequences of events.
The Weekly Reader celebrated its century mark in 2002.
In 2006, the Weekly Reader Corporation published sixteen newspapers for students in kindergarten through grade
twelve, including READ® (1951), Know Your World®Extra
(1967), Teen NewsweekTM (1999).
One theme has remained constant in Weekly Reader
throughout its evolution—motivating children to take
action to help others, especially after devastation. In October, 2005, the Weekly Reader web page for kids featured a story taken from its printed pages: “Earthquake Shakes
Pakistan.” The first paragraph starts with the children in
Kashmir going to school on the morning of October 8,
just as they always had. Then, “their world collapsed.”
The writer relates the gruesome details—thirty thousand
dead and more fatalities expected. But, the site also offered
advice for raising money for victims of disasters, like the
tsunami, the hurricane along the Gulf Coast, or the earthquake in Pakistan.
Further Reading
Carpenter, Walter Duane. “Values, Leaders and My Weekly
Reader: An Historical Study.” PhD disseration, The University of Nebraska—Lincoln, 2006.
Mott, Frank Luther. A History of American Magazines, 1885–
1905. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957.
Richards, Marc. “The Cold War According to My Weekly
Reader,” Monthly Review: An Independent Socialist Magazine (October 1, 1998) 50:5,3 3–47.
Weekly Reader: 60 Years of News for Kids, intro. Hugh Downs.
New York: World Almanac, 1988.
Paulette Kilmer