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Contact: Patricia M. Mikelson
Highlights Corporate Communications
pmmikelson@highlights-corp.com or 614-324-7003

ABOUT HIGHLIGHTS HIGH FIVE™

Questions and Answers
with Editor Christine French Clark

Highlights High Five is dedicated to helping parents, grandparents, and other caregivers stimulate their young children's development and have fun together at the same time.

Q: Highlights for Children has always served a broad age of children, and served them well. What prompted Highlights to create a magazine specifically for younger children?

A: For 60 years, pre-readers have enjoyed Highlights magazine alongside older siblings or parents who read the magazine aloud to them and helped them noodle things out. This has worked wonderfully for millions of families. But we observed that Highlights magazine is probably best enjoyed by children who are reading independently, and we thought there was a better way to serve "Fun with a Purpose" to families with very young children.

Certainly, as their understanding of the importance of the early learning years has grown, parents are looking for more and better ways to stimulate their child's growth and development. Perhaps more than ever before, parents understand that they are their child's first and most influential teachers, and they want to create more high-quality, one-on-one moments that are educational but also fun for both parent and child.

We felt sure we could create a magazine very similar to Highlights but edited specifically for children in early childhood that would help parents set their young children firmly on the path to becoming curious, creative, caring, and confident individuals.

Q: What do you hope the tagline "Celebrating Early Childhood" conveys?

A: We hope it conveys the very important idea that young children learn best and thrive in a happy, relaxed atmosphere. Many parents feel pressured and constantly wonder if they're doing enough to aid in their children's development. But in early childhood, fun and learning go hand in hand, and we hope that High Five will give parents permission to "live in the moment" and enjoy their children. Early childhood is a short, sweet season, and we want parents and grandparents to revel in it.

Q: What will be included in Highlights High Five?

A: Highlights High Five, like its older sibling Highlights, is a general-interest magazine with a wide variety of things for children to enjoy. Each issue will consist of a high-quality mix of read-aloud stories (both fiction and nonfiction), poetry, age-appropriate puzzles, fingerplays and action rhymes, craft ideas, and simple recipes. Regular features include a read-aloud story that introduces the Spanish language, and "The Adventures of Spot," derived from "The Timbertoes" feature that appears monthly in Highlights.

Q: Highlights for Children, often called a "cultural icon," is well regarded by parents and teachers, who see it as an educational publication that helps children become lifelong learners and readers. How will you attempt to do that with the preschool age?

A: The Highlights philosophy includes the notion that children are born with an enormous capacity for thinking and reasoning, creating, and expressing ideas. In all that we do, we avoid "talking down" to children and work instead to challenge them with well-written, interesting material. Like Highlights, High Five is founded on the principle that "children are the world's most important people," and every story, article, puzzle, and activity published in it must fit with the magazine's mission statement:

Highlights High Five celebrates the early years of childhood—a time of discovery when learning happens at every turn. Our magazine is dedicated to helping parents, educators, and other caregivers nurture young children by

• encouraging their natural sense of wonder about the world;
• promoting reasoning, problem solving, creative self-expression;
• fostering a love of language and a rich vocabulary;
• and inspiring them to be kind, to get along with others, and to grow in self-confidence...for children are the world's most important people.

We earn the trust and win the respect of parents, grandparents, and teachers by staying focused on our mission.

Q: What else does Highlights offer families with very young children?

A: We continue to develop the Highlights toy catalog and the Highlights.com e-commerce site, creating and sourcing for parents and grandparents additional preschool products that support our notion of "celebrating early childhood."

We are also very proud of our five Highlights book clubs, all of which are designed to help kids grow to become thoughtful, literate citizens. The newest book club, Hidden Pictures Playground, is most appropriate for children ages four and up, and its early success suggests that parents of young children have great interest in developmentally appropriate, educational products that children find engaging.

Q: How can parents, grandparents, and caregivers order Highlights High Five?

A: All of the Highlights for Children products can be ordered via our secure Web site, www.Highlights.com, or by calling 800-472-7038.

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Highlights for Children, Inc. (www.Highlights.com) has focused on helping children become their best selves for generations. Highlights magazine celebrated the printing and delivery of the one-billionth copy of the magazine and its 60th anniversary through summer 2006. Highlights High Five™, devoted to pre- and emerging readers (ages two to six) will publish in January 2007. On the Web, www.HighlightsKids.com offers children interactive content related to each issue of the magazine, as well as independent activities such as "Click-and-Play Hidden Pictures®," e-cards, games, craft activities, "Mystery Messages," jokes, and riddles. Devoted to "Fun with a Purpose®," Highlights for Children also offers children, parents, grandparents, and educators a broad range of products including the Highlights for Children Book Clubs (Puzzlemania®, Mathmania®, Which Way USA?®, Top Secret Adventures™, and Hidden Pictures Playground®). Highlights Toy Catalog (www.Highlights.com) selects quality toys, games, craft activities, puzzles, and other products that children will love and parents can trust. Corporate offices are in Columbus, Ohio, and the editorial offices are in Honesdale, Pennsylvania.

For more information or to arrange an interview with a Highlights for Children spokesperson, please contact Patricia M. Mikelson, Highlights Corporate Communications at pmmikelson@highlights-corp.com or 614-324-7003.