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While many parents grapple with ways to get youngsters off screens and the New Zealand Government considers banning social media for under-16s, two Mangawhai-based friends have taken matters into their own hands with the creation of a new magazine.
Aimed at girls aged 8 to 13, Athena magazine is the brainchild of Amy Mostert and Natalia Yandall, with the idea originating during a visit to the local bookshop when Mostert’s daughter asked if she could buy a small girls’ magazine.
“Watching my daughter do the quizzes and look at all the pictures brought back a flood of memories of the magazines we grew up with,” Mostert says.
Despite happy memories of days lounging around reading magazines in the 1990s and early 2000s like Dolly and Girlfriend, when Mostert browsed through the magazine she bought for her daughter later that evening, she says she felt “underwhelmed by its content”.
“I immediately fired off a message to Natalia saying, ‘Hey, I reckon we need to make a magazine for tweens – keen?’”
Former intermediate schoolteacher and founding editor Mostert, who re-trained as a mind-body practitioner focusing on emotional regulation, nervous system and mindset and creative director Yandall, who brings a flair for design thanks to her studies in art history, marketing and interior design experience, both homeschool their children and say they have learned from being homeschool parents that when a gap needs filling, whether it’s a disco, a community group or creating your own magazine, “you just need to do it.”
And so, from a chance purchase in the local bookstore, Athena was born.
The bimonthly magazine is a colourful celebration of the joy of girlhood during what can often be a time of uncertainty.
“The middle years and early teens are a time of transformation, a time of forming an identity. It’s a different time from what we grew up with. Teens and tweens today are having algorithms and influencers sculpt their view of themselves.”
The first edition was released in early September and includes puzzles, recipes, advice, ways to get creative and inspirational stories from local girls.
“A print magazine is a little reclamation of girlhood. It’s the sitting around with your friends, doing the quizzes with them, lying in bed with mum reading together, journalling and crafting and creating and growing into yourself,” Mostert and Yandall say.
Although the magazine is created by adults, Mostert and Yandall aim to put their readers at the heart of everything they do and welcome contributions from girls wanting to write and share their hobbies, accomplishments, artwork, favourite music playlists or fashion.
With more than 100 magazines sold since its release, Mostert and Yandall hope the magazine continues to grow and inspire a new generation of girls in New Zealand and Australia, with plans already afoot to create a magazine aimed at tween and teenage boys aptly named, Apollo.
