John Martin (pseud.) Morgan Van Roorbach Shepard (1865-1947), created an innovative monthly for both girls and boys aged three to eight. Vol. 1 nr. 1 was planned as a Christmas book. The magazine ran from 1912 to 1933 and featured contributions from authors and illustrators of the day along with Morgan Shepard’s own stories and poems. One of the poems in the first issue “The wheels that grind”, is an appeal to “stand with us against the national blight of Child Labor”. Correspondence is invited from children and from mothers “you must tell us exactly what you want and what you DON’T want” and an illustrated series of talks on the Montessori method of education is announced. Beside cut outs and other activities including simple cookery, a good part of the magazine is made up of advertisements presented as stories or poems blending in with the non commercial content. “Merely money” is a candid appeal to mothers to support the magazine by buying the advertisers’ products.
Among the first issue contributors are May E. Southworth who wrote a well known series of cookbooks “101 Epicurean Thrills” for Paul Elder.