Boosting Boys Life subscriptions

[SSScout 1615]

I find agreement with everything above.

The BL of my youth was a Scout magazine: how to do, make, go and stay. Since the "dumbing down" of the rank requirements (see other threads), the content of BL has lost it's purpose. Articles on finding the north star, morse code study and use, tracking, animal IDing, filled it's pages. It was a addendum to the "Handbook for Boys". It had advertising, but I remember most of it's content was articles about "them that are out doing it" and "how to do it", but that's how things were back then. We made our own tents, camped on a "budget".

Here's something indicative: my son's Patrol buys it's food/supplies, THEN divies up the expense. In my Scout day, each Scout contributed, say, $3. (!) and we bought our meals from that. If we had money left over, great, if not, we didn't buy any more. The same attitude seems to permiate the BL of today. It says, "here's a product, already made, to take care of this problem/situation. Buy it".

The BL of today resembles a comic book, not a useful how-to book. It is almost too slick.

Where previously, only one "Scouts in Action" item would be in an issue, now more episodes are now included because (IMO) they are easy to produce, popular for their subject (action, heroism, reallife, the reading Scout can ID with the Scout in the episode, show how Scout training can really save lives) and no copyright issues. And it is a cartoon. Think Classic Comics. It makes it EASY to read it.

The Bible stories are nice. But, as I have had to remind folks before, Christianity is not a requirement to join BSA. Sure, they are Old Testament mostly (haven't seen any New Testament stories for a long while), but where are stories from the Koran? Bhagavad Gita? Book of Mormon? Native American creation stories? Come to think of it, BL used to feature American Indian legend and mythology on a regular basis.

When was the last time you saw an article about Kipling's Jungle Book? Jack London wrote for BL. So did Hemingway. Who writes for BL now? I like Gary Paulson ("Hatchet"), but even he is limited in his draw.

Scoutson glances through his BL and is done in 10 minutes. It has no draw for him because, in his own words,"it's too young for me", and he said that when he was 13. He's now 16, and it really is "too young" for him. Yes, he receives the BS edition, not the CS edition.

And why the perception of the need for seperate issues? Where is the challenge there? I read about the camping and hiking of Boy Scouts and my little Cub self couldn't wait to grow up.

The BL of today is playing to the lowest common denominator, and not asking the Scout reader to step up and do more than they thought they could.