Magazine

Teen (Fall 2006) published by Hearst Communications, Inc.
3 1/2 stars
Published by the creators of the well-known classic teen mag Seventeen, Teen seems to be going for a slightly younger audience than its predecessor. The articles don't deal with sex-related topics, it has many articles featuring real life teens about culture, dealing with a friend's suicide, entrepreneurship. All of its pages are in bright, fun colours, it's clearly laid out and simply written and has tons of celebrity pics and illustrations. As I flipped through the pages, I realized that my knowledge of teen celebrities was extremely lacking. I could only recognize one out of ten of the pictures. Many of the celebs actually seemed to be teens and they participate in a lot of feature articles and quick opinion polls, making this a major attraction for teens. Teen contains the usual teen girl fare - advice columns, articles about guys and friends , quizzes, an embarassing stories column, horoscopes, as well as fashion layouts and DVD book reviews. I was strangely pleased that in addition to chick lit fiction, Teen included a small blurb on graphic novels and an "interview" with "Emily the Strange". I was also surprised to see a column on easy-to-make recipes like black bean burritos and "bagel-wiches".
Teen covers a lot of different topics and although this is great, it also causes their articles to be rather light with no article (besides the fashion layouts) being more than two pages. Therefore, while Teen (like many magazines) is not an especially heavy read, it's fun, innocent, gives good advice and is chockful of pictures. I would recommend this for younger adults ages 12 and up.