Dave, I would have given my eye-teeth for a subscription to Jack and Jill! Many in my collection have mailing labels and I always think about the lucky kid who got that magazine each month. I suspect you remember those covers because it was rare to have a children’s magazine and you probably read them over and over.
The Golden Magazine, as I said, was a recent discovery, but it’s such a classy production, sort of an upscale Jack and Jill. I have read E.B. White’s essay about St. Nicholas. The roll call of St. Nicholas League prize winners is astonishing.
I’m so glad you got your start in the Cricket house! I never cracked that market until much later in my career, and even then poetry to Spider. If you can track it down, Cricket put together a 30th anniversary book with some of the early stories and art, but mostly interviews with their illustrious board members and contributors who dreamed a wonderful dream and made it real.
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your story!

I only remember Highlights in the dentist’s office and as a kid who read everything with print, it was hard not to leaf through it anyway. I didn’t like the art (picky even at 8 and 9) and felt some of the stories were too babyish (they covered too wide an age range). But Highlights is still around and any children’s periodical that has stood the test of time, like Cricket, deserves applause.