Reading smarts

Media honchos beware. There's a new brew of experts waiting to change the way children view music, film, comics and the written word. Media Madness, An Insider's Guide to the Media, gives kids, ages five to nine, an honest answer to: What exactly is reality television? Why isn't my music getting airplay? And, how weird is the World Wide Web, really?

In Media Madness, Kids Can Press, Tonawanda, N.Y., the host, fiery loon bird Max McLoon, fashioned after famous media ecologist Marshall McLuhan, by author Dominic Cho, first takes kids through the ins and outs of television, from the actors, producers and lighting crew on through the music industry, comic book land, the magazine world and beyond.

Soon, terms like syndication, sweeps and target audience are part of their vocabulary. “I think what we were trying to do was give a balanced look at the media, not an anti-consumer kind of rant,” says Valerie Wyatt, non-fiction editor at Kids Can Press. “It's a book that says how the media operates and the kinds of business parts of the media that are behind it all. So when kids start consuming media they come to it as informed consumers. And and educated child consumer may be the best customer a retailer can ask for.

Media Madness ($14.95 hard; $8.95 soft) also includes activities like designing a comic book character or creating a radio show with friends, perhaps, finding the media niche that best suits them. “It's very hip. The art has that kind of comic book feel to it,” says Wyatt. “The way that the book is presented will also be very appealing to kids. There are a whole bunch of in jokes in it, so we packaged it so that kids would actually be drawn to reading it.”

Wyatt says that the adult interest in getting kids more media-savvy will help with the sale of the book. “Among adults, there's a lot of interest in making kids more media savvy, so I think adults will buy it for that reason,” says Wyatt.

Other Kids Can Press books planned are: Jurassic Poop, a book about preserved, you guessed it, poop, from ancient dinosaurs and ancient people, will be released within the year. An introductory course to architecture, Fantastic Feats and Failures, which was released last month, gives kids the insides and outs of fantastic buildings and structures like the Tower of Pisa, World Trade Center and Apollo 13.

National Geographic is known for its breathtaking photography. Remember the famous Steve McCurry photo of the green-eyed Afghan girl wearing a purple burkha on the cover of the June 1985 issue of the magazine? You and Me Together, Moms, Dads and Kids Around the World is no exception. Through 24 images, the book is a visual introduction to other cultures, You and Me includes photos of mothers, fathers and their kids doing everyday things.

The book, released by National Geographic, Washington, D.C., gives kids insight into parent-child relationships across the globe. In You and Me Together, which sells for $16.95, kids are introduced to life in other countries, like a mother and daughter in Pune, India painting themselves in colored powder for the Holi Festival, a father and daughter riding the bus in Berlin or an Aborigine dad teaching his son how to carve a boomerang in Uluru National Park in Australia.