''Muse'' is a children's magazine published by

Carus Publishing The Carus Publishing Company, now subsumed into Cricket Media, was a publisher with offices in Chicago, Peterborough, New Hampshire and Peru, Illinois. Its Peterborough office was closed June 30, 2015. Its Peru offices have closed as well, and ope ...

, the publishers of ''

Cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

''. Launched in January 1997, it is published in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, Illinois, and has readers throughout the United States and around the world. From 1997 to today, it was published by ''Cricket'' and sponsored by '' Smithsonian''. Recommended for ages nine and above, it features articles about science, history, and the arts. It is edited by Johanna Arnone. Nine cartoon characters, known as the Muses, used to appear in the margins throughout the magazine as well as in the Kokopelli & Company comic strip. After merging with its sister magazine ''Odyssey'' in September 2015, ''Muse'' added new content, changed its layout, and replaced the Muses with a comic named "Parallel U" featuring different characters.

Magazine contents

''Muse'' is published nine times annually. Each issue contains a comic strip ("Parallel U") written by Caanan Grall, letters from readers (''Muse'' Mail), a facts page (''Muse'' News), a contest, a question-and-answer page written by Lizzie Wade, a page about technology, and articles on various topics. Past issues have included articles about vegetarianism, pie throwing, extraterrestrial life,

naked mole-rat The naked mole-rat (''Heterocephalus glaber''), also known as the sand puppy, is a burrowing rodent native to the Horn of Africa and parts of Kenya, notably in Somali regions. It is closely related to the blesmols and is the only species in th ...

s, the origin of the moon, pirates,

urban legends An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...

, insects, mummies,

tenrecs A tenrec is any species of mammal within the afrotherian family Tenrecidae endemic to Madagascar. Tenrecs are wildly diverse; as a result of convergent evolution some resemble hedgehogs, shrews, opossums, rats, and mice. They occupy aquatic ...

, the history of napkins, contacting ghosts, New Zealand's

exploding trousers In New Zealand in the 1930s, farmers reportedly had trouble with exploding trousers as a result of attempts to control ragwort, an agricultural weed. Farmers had been spraying sodium chlorate, a government recommended weedkiller, onto the ragwort, ...

Rube Goldberg Reuben Garrett Lucius Goldberg (July 4, 1883 – December 7, 1970), known best as Rube Goldberg, was an American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer, and inventor. Goldberg is best known for his popular cartoons depicting complicated gadge ...

inventions, ''

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's boo ...

'', and blind cavefish.

Muses

The Muses were drawn by cartoonist

Larry Gonick Larry Gonick (born 1946) is a cartoonist best known for ''The Cartoon History of the Universe'', a history of the world in comic book form, which he published in installments from 1977 to 2009. He has also written ''The Cartoon History of the U ...

. Among them, only

Urania Urania ( ; grc, , Ouranía; modern Greek shortened name ''Ránia''; meaning "heavenly" or "of heaven") was, in Greek mythology, the muse of astronomy, and in later times, of Christian poetry. Urania is the goddess of astronomy and stars, he ...

was one of the original

Greek muses Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

;

Kokopelli Kokopelli () is a fertility deity, usually depicted as a humpbacked flute player (often with feathers or antenna-like protrusions on his head), who is venerated by some Native American cultures in the Southwestern United States. Like most fer ...

, a

trickster In mythology and the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a character in a story (god, goddess, spirit, human or anthropomorphisation) who exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherwi ...

, is a god in many Native American tribes. *

: Muse of tunes and tricks, who often throws pies * Chad: Muse of Hardware * Aeiou: Muse of

Software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

* Bo: Muse of

Factoid A factoid is either an invented or assumed statement presented as a fact, ''or'' a true but brief or trivial item of news or information. The term was coined in 1973 by American writer Norman Mailer to mean a piece of information that becomes ac ...

s *

: Muse of

Astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...

* Feather: Muse of Plants * Crraw: Muse of Bad Poetry * Pwt: Muse of Animals * Mimi: Muse of getting along with people In addition, Devil, Kokopelli's dog, and Angel, Mimi's cat, were occasionally featured, more so in older issues. As of September 2015, the Muses have been removed from the magazine, replaced with a new comic called ''Parallel U'' drawn by Caanan Grall.

Awards

*2019 Parents’ Choice Gold *2018 Parents’ Choice Gold *2017 Parents’ Choice Gold *2016 Parents' Choice Gold *2015 Parents' Choice Gold *2014 Parents' Choice Gold *2013 Parents' Choice Gold *2012 Parents' Choice Gold *2010 Parents' Choice Gold *2008 Parents' Choice Silver *2005 Parents' Choice GoldParents' Choice Award 2005 - Muse Magazine
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References

External links

Cricket Media
(Muse's official website) {{DEFAULTSORT:Muse (children's magazine) 1997 establishments in Illinois Advertising-free magazines Children's magazines published in the United States Magazines established in 1997 Magazines published in Chicago Nine times annually magazines