I recently popped into WH Smiths near work to pick up Storytime Magazine. It comes from Luma Creative, the people behind Magic Belles and it’s a lovely, back to basics traditional storytelling magazine. Read on to find out more!

Storytime Magazine is fabulous. In an age of children’s magazines being bright colours, free toys, adverts and an entire aisle of plastic and lots of “BUY ME ME ME” I didn’t know where to start looking for Storytime. Fortunately it was around the corner – away from all those kids magazines. I know there are campaigns to remove magazines with boobs away from children’s eyes, but I’d like the majority of children’s magazines toned down too.

The first thing I noticed were the lack of adverts inside. This is a great thing – Storytime is a magazine we will love alongside H’s Okido subscription which also has no ads and no free gifts – just fun things to do and plenty of facts.

Then there’s the stories – we have a lot of story books; indeed quite a lot which are covered in here; but as H progresses as a reader I’m a firm believer in her reading the same story in as many different ways as possible. The length of stories in Storytime are the kind she would read on her own with no trouble.

Issue 1 has The Hare and the Tortoise, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Alice in Wonderland, The Owl and the Pussy-cat, Aladdin, The Fairy Bride and Perseus & Medusa. There are also puzzles and activities.

You can subscribe to the magazine and will save 25% on the cover price – as well as getting delivery direct to your door.

If I was to compare it to any other magazine, remember the Story Teller ones back in the 1980’s which included a free cassette, and featured classic stories? It’s like that without the cassette. That’s more than okay with me.

If you’ve been missing a magazine which is one you’ll keep going back to with plenty of stories, then please consider Storytime Magazine. We love it, and I’m going to subscribe to it – in fact, I believe this kind of magazine should exist so I’m going to buy one for H’s school as well to help spread the word.

Storytime Magazine is available now in WH Smiths and all good supermarkets. All libraries have been sent a copy of Issue 1, and they offer subscriptions for schools and libraries too. As well as this, you can subscribe digitally via the App Store.

Their official website is here with extra printables and activities based on the stories in the current issue. Issue 1 has 50 pages and sells for £3.99.