“Our motto is a whimsy and wonder-filled world,” says grad student Christie A. Seamons (BA ’25), managing editor for Whirligig, a new children’s magazine. With two issues published and big dreams for the future, Whirligig’s staff of BYU professors and students is on a mission to get kids involved in creative work.
“We want kids to see themselves in the magazine,” says Natalie Dickman Tate (BA ’20), a grad student who helps teach the magazine class. Whirligig encourages kids to submit their artwork, poetry, or short stories.
“This is so collaborative, from conception all the way to production,” adds professor and children’s book author Ann Dee Knight Ellis (BA ’99, MA ’03), the faculty advisor for Whirligig, along with illustration professor Melissa Crowton (BFA ’12). Undergrads in English, editing, and design earn internship credit by joining the magazine’s staff. There they gain professional-level experience by sorting through submissions, reaching out to authors and illustrators of all ages, and planning activities at local libraries and schools.
At one such event, as BYU students led a writing activity, a girl sat doodling, uninterested. Whirligig managing editor and grad student Allison Phillips Hart (MFA ’26) watched as one of the students offered the girl a magazine. “No, I’m not interested,” the girl said. “I really liked what you were drawing,” the student replied. “Did you know you could submit your drawings to the magazine?” Hart watched the girl’s eyes light up as she took the magazine with new understanding. “It was a connection moment for her,”
says Hart.
“Our mission is the magazine,” says Ellis, “but it is also kids’ literacy and kids’ joy.”
Give it a Whirl
Want to inspire some whimsy in your home this summer? Try out one of these creativity prompts from the Whirligig staff with your kids and consider sending it in. Whirligig accepts submissions of artwork, poetry, short stories, and comic strips from kids ages 9–11 at whirligigmagazine.com.
Writing Prompt
Someone has to go into the forest to find an object that will save the town. Who will go? What is the object? What is wrong with the town? What happens?
Drawing Prompt
Every good hero needs a sidekick. Who would your sidekick be? What would he or she look like? Create an illustration of the ideal sidekick.
