Mystery Magazines -- for kids
Dates: 1/14/00,3:07 PM through 1/18/00,10:21 AM (3 postings)
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Mystery Magazines -- for kids
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FROM: <[removed]@aol.com>
REC'D: 1/14/00, 3:07 PM
Her class is selling magazines and she has asked me to get her the Alfred
Hitchcock Mystery Magazine or the Ellery Queen Mystery magazine. I've never
read these? Are they suitable for a 10 year old? She reads very well, but
would be shocked or squeamish about any violence that was very descriptive.
Do they have sex in them? Strong language? If they are okay, is one better
than the other?
Thanks,
Sherri McCarthy
FROM: <[removed]@aol.com>
REC'D: 1/14/00, 7:02 PM
Actually my aunt gave me a subscription to Alfred
Hitchcocks Mystery magazine when I was about that
age (again probably stemming from my love of Nancy
Drew :) ) and I loved it and eagerly awaited it ever
month and I am pretty sure that I recall liking some authors
so much I started looking for whole books by them so it
was a good spring board. Offhand I don't recall anything
in there that was anything I should not read...I have not
looked at them for years, but my memory was pleasantly
rekindled by your letter.
Hope she enjoys them!
Janet Morley
East Regional Library
Knightdale NC 27545
FROM: "Dennis K. Lien" <[removed]@tc.umn.edu>
REC'D: 1/18/00, 10:21 AM
I was expecting to see a number of replies on this one but (unless I
missed it) don't think anyone has responded. Given the number of
mystery fans on the list that surprises me: doesn't anyone read short
stories any more? In any case, while I've not been reading EQMM or
AHMM recently, I've read many issues in the past (especially of EQMM)
and, unless they've changed greatly in recent years, I don't believe
there's anything in either that would be objectionable for an
intelligent ten-year-old reader. Sex and violence obviously are a
part of many crime/detective stories, but, while stories in these
might use sexual jealousy over affairs or such as a motive for
murder, I can't recall ever seeing a story in either that was sexually
explicit or used any language that would raise anyone's eyebrows.
Similiarly, while a majority of the stories in each generally
revolve around one or more murders, I don't recall any emphasis on
"sadistic" descriptions.
Another list (Fictionmags) to which I belong includes a number of
authors and editors; a few months ago, one of the editors therein
who wanted to start up a new magazine of crime fiction that *would*
be emphasizing "rougher" stories with adult sex and violence and
language and such complained bitterly that the prospective publishers
nixed it after surveying the readership of EQMM and AHMM; she felt
that those magazines were read primarily by conservative (in literary
tastes at least) older folks who were exactly the wrong target
audience for her proposed magazine and thus that the sampling/survy
was invalid. Sounds right to me.
As I noted, I've not been reading either in recent years (though both,
EQMM especially, publish a lot of reprints of stories that I may have
read before there or in another context), so I don't think I can
effectively rate them against each other. My impression, for what it's
worth, is that EQMM tends more toward puzzle stories (who did it and
how) and perhaps toward more humor than AHMM, which may emphasize
straight crime and psychological studies more. But I could be quite wrong.
For what it's worth...
Dennis Lien / U of Minnesota Libraries // [removed]@tc.umn.edu
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