When my daughter turned two years old, I bought her a subscription to a French children's magazine called Popi. Admittedly, subscribing to a French magazine for delivery in the USA is costly, and I wondered if it would be worth the expense. But even at that age, my daughter adored receiving Popi and she continues to read those same issues even now at four years old. We switched to Toupie et Chansons the following year; that subscription included four music CDs with the special issues. I'll write specific reviews for those magazines in a future blog post, but for now, here's an overview of the French children's magazines available in the U.S. and how to subscribe. (Children's magazines in Spanish are further down.)

Bayard and Milan are currently the only French publishers offering an option to order their magazines using U.S. dollars. You can order through their English website, Frenchmagforkids.com, but the subscription will cost less If you order through the publishers' sales representative in your region. (For example, if you live on the East Coast of the U.S., you can contact Marie-Caroline Russell for a catalog, subscription form, and current price list by mail.)

Bayard and Milan magazines are among the most popular children's magazines in France. (You can flip through virtual issues at their French website; select a magazine, click on feuilleter and be patient for it to load.) They offer French children's magazines catering to specific interests as well as magazines written specifically for girls. Here are their top selling magazines in each age category:

Popi (ages 0-3) features short stories with familiar characters, a fold-out scene, and nursery rhymes.
Pomme d'Api (ages 3-7) features stories, answers to children's questions, crafts, and games.
Histoires pour les petits (ages 2-6) focuses on stories and includes an audio CD with every other issue.
J'aime lire (ages 7-10) features a chapter story as well as literacy-oriented games and puzzles.
Okapi (ages 10-15) covers topics of preteen interest, from current events to culture, and is published twice monthly.

Subscribing to French children's magazines from other publishers requires using the publisher's website or an intermediary seller such as Amazon.com or UniPresse. Here are other French children's magazine publishers:

Fleurus Presse publishes a dozen children's magazines that are less well-known than those listed above but may be just as well-liked. Their parent company, OpenGate Capital, also owns Disney Hachette (publisher of Disney magazines in French).
Playbac Presse
Turbulences Presse
Editions Faton

My local library offers Spanish versions of Bayard magazines but not the French versions--we simply don't have enough demand for them here.

I've searched for French children's magazines published in Canada but have not had any success.

Which magazines did you enjoy as a child? Do your children have a favorite magazine?