Articles
There’s Nothing Boring In It
June 18, 2021
Why Subscribing to the Circle Is An Incredible Investment for Your Kids
Chani Kahan
Only a busy housewife understands.
The kids keep changing their minds about whether they want chicken or kugel.
Erev Shabbos music is still blasting from the counter, and you’re making mental notes every five minutes to remember to put the player away.
You run through your mental checklist yet again:
Give the two-year-old a second bath because he decided that getting chocolate goop in his hair an hour to Shabbos was a great idea.
Get all the food onto the blech and into the oven.
Make sure the cholent is set at the right heat.
Look for the matches which always disappear last minute.
A tug at your skirt.
“No, you can’t have cookies now.”
Will there be time to finish the makeup before it’s too late?
“Okay, just take a cookie and let me clean this—argh!—spot on the floor that my shoe keeps getting stuck in!”
And then, the zman arrives, you light, and there is nothing you need to do right this second. The couch is a lovely throne for you, the queen of your abode…
Were it not for the fact that a bunch of freshly bathed kids (what is that, kugel on her nose?) are vying for your attention.
If you could occupy them with something productive for just 15 minutes, you would feel a real “ba’ah Shabbos, ba’ah menuchah.”
***
Only a forward-thinking adult understands.
The boys have a grand time during the hours when they’re supposed to be learning English. (In fact, some of them will tell you that their English curriculum is “optionary.”)
But looking at the older bachurim and men in your family, you know that they feel disadvantaged.
They don’t sound polished or professional, despite their high intelligence.
Their texts have embarrassing spelling mistakes in basic words.
They certainly don’t enjoy spending 10 minutes composing an email or sounding like an immigrant on a phone call.
You don’t have complaints against the school—their priority is your sons’ Torah learning, and you don’t want them to cut back on that.
But you wish they could have broader world knowledge, a motivation to read, a productive way to use their minds when they need to relax.
And the worst part: even when they pick up a book, it’s 70-plus pages of comics.
A seventh grader should be reading on a higher level than that, you think.
But he’s reading, so you can’t complain.
***
Only a frum parent understands.
School libraries are wonderful.
Every week the kids bring home books, and you don’t have to pay a thing for them.
Correction: Every week, each student can bring home one book.
Some kids are slow readers, and it takes them a week to finish their book.
But your daughter is a voracious reader, and by the morning after library day, she’s happily letting her siblings read this week’s book.
She read every book that interests her in Mrs. Shanik’s library.
You wish you can take her to the public library, but there’s no way you can go through every book she picks out to make sure it’s appropriate for a frum girl.
The national kids’ science and history magazines that were okay when you were a kid have turned frighteningly liberal.
Your child is starving for stimulating reading, and there’s no way you can provide it fast enough.
***
There is a better way.
At the edge of town, right before you turn onto the Garden State Parkway, a team of Lakewood’s most skilled editors and talent miners create a product to help you with such frustrations.
The Circle magazine prints 80 pages of compelling, stimulating reading material for kids—every week.
There are action-packed comics which keep kids hooked from week to week.
There are cool facts and scientific tidbits that keep bits of knowledge at their fingertips.
There are in-depth nonfiction articles and fiction stories that really get them to read.
It’s new material prepared by frum writers and editors who understand your kids’ reading needs—and that you can trust will meet your standards a thousand percent.
We analyzed which columns kids enjoy reading the most, and this is what we learned:
Here’s a list of what today’s kids are interested in reading.
- Cool facts and interesting tidbits (No Kidding and Hey! I Never Knew That!)
- Funny and crazy news (In the Loop)
- Action-packed comic serial stories
- Weekly funny story about a cute character (Only Mimi)
- Feature about history, psychology, or an interesting topic
- Serialized fiction stories
- One-time comic stories about a gadol, middah, or mitzvah (Learning from Their Lives, What a Story)
- True stories about emunah and bitachon (Everything Emunah)
- Handwriting analysis (In Your Hands)
- Kid-friendly recipes
- Pictorial tours
- Visual riddles (In the Picture)
- Contests
What’s Different About The Circle?
It’s not the first kids’ magazine to hit the planet.
But minutes after it hits your doorstep, you’ll know why kids and their parents can’t get enough of it.
Here are a few small details that make a huge difference:
The pages are bold, colorful, and a pleasure to look at.
Graphic artists and layout editors squint at their screens, figuring out how to design each article so it reads smoothly and looks exciting.
Kids are drooling as they wait to read each page. This mag has no fillers hanging out in between the flashy stuff. If a column is not compelling enough, the editors either make it more exciting or drop it entirely.
High-quality reading demands high-quality paper. When you feel the pages of the magazine, you can tell that it’s made to last. Avid Circle readers often send pictures of the binders or books they created out of old Circle magazines—they can’t bear to throw out such good material.
The Circle may not be the first magazine on the planet, but it has created a new standard in frum reading.
***
The reviews tell the story.
We couldn’t make this up if we tried.
As of this article’s writing, the Circle has 154 reviews on Google, and every single one of them gives five stars.
Don’t trust Google?
Mechanchim and mechanchos praise the Circle to the skies.
Teachers and rebbe’im call the office all the time to request permission to copy articles for their classes. They feel that the articles in the Circle offer a frum, wholesome perspective on world events and Jewish history.
Several local schools have even purchased copies at bulk pricing to stock their class libraries and offer exciting reading material to children who are having a hard time learning to read.
We love how Boruch Katz put it in his review:
This is by far the best Jewish children’s magazine on the market. Perhaps the best magazine on the market, period. It has a large variety of interesting content and well-researched, timely articles on historical and contemporary topics of general interest. It keeps that balance between entertaining and educational. All my children are excited every week when the Circle arrives at our house!
***
Now you have a chance to get even more value from your subscription.
On Sunday, June 20, the Circle is running a flash sale from 9 a.m.–9 p.m.
First-time purchasers of a yearly subscription during that time get 14 months for the price of 12.
Yeah, that’s like 30 dollars off your subscription, or 40 dollars cheaper than buying it in the store for those two months.
If you’re renewing an existing subscription, you’ll receive two weeks free if you’re subscribing online during those 12 hours.
This is the biggest sale of the year, and it’s happening for 12 hours only.
Sign up on Sunday, June 20 to start receiving delightful reading every week.
How to subscribe
Call or text 732-592-5437.
Email [email protected].
Subscribe online at subscribe.circmag.com.
Can’t wait for you to join our Circle!