[BRIEF NOTE] Owl and Chickadee

[rfmcdonald]

Many thanks to Torontoist's Jamie Bradburn for reminding me of two magazines that I loved as a child ("Vintage Toronto Ads: Brainy Birds for a Child You Love".

Hands up—how many of you read Chickadee or Owl during your childhood or purchased it for kids you knew? With features like the cartoon adventures of the Mighty Mites and the experiments of Dr. Zed (aka York Region science teacher Gordon Penrose), these magazines aimed to introduce scientific and environmental concepts to young readers.

Owl began publishing in 1976, with early subscription ads featuring praise from the likes of Pierre Berton, even if the language used may not have been deemed appropriate for innocent ears ("It's a damn good magazine!"). Both magazines faced financial difficulties due to publisher Young Naturalist Foundation's anti-advertising stance, but a fundraising campaign in 1980 kept the publications afloat.

I was quite pleased to find out that Owl and Chickadee are still quite active, even though OWL/TV came to an end in 1994. It's nice when vestiges of childhood get a chance to survive, for a while at least.