Darlene Walker, director of Youthful Inspiration Inc., an after-school journalism program in Baltimore County, is suitably proud of her students this semester: They just launched Voices, their first-ever glossy, self-published magazine. The kids read, posed for pictures and signed copies of the inaugural issue.
“They did everything themselves,” Walker said. “They interviewed people and wrote the stories. They contributed the short stories, and they took some of the photos.
“If I have to compare it to something, I guess I?d say it?s a cross between Essence and Sports Illustrated for Kids,” Walker said with a laugh last week at Barnes & Noble booksellers in Pikesville, where the magazine was officially released.
Walker?s class, with 25 kids currently enrolled, meets 4 to 6 p.m. five days a week at Wellwood International School in Pikesville. The students from Wellwood and Milbrook are largely black children ages 6 to 11, with a couple of middle-schoolers in the group. The final product especially impressed Wellwood International Principal William S. Burke.
“I?ve never seen [something] like this produced by school-age kids their age,” Burke said. “Lots of interviews, readable articles and a nice package.”
The 56-page magazine, which retails for $5 at the Barnes & Nobles store on Reisterstown Road, highlights a Macy?s fashion spread ? with cover girl Chelsea Hill, a fourth-grade student at Wellwood. It also has arts and entertainment features, restaurant reviews, a think-piece on sports and violence, plus Q & A?s with local newsmakers. They even scored one-on-one?s with Harbor Bank President Joseph Haskins and singer Rufus “Scola” Waller of Dru Hill, the Baltimore R &B group, among others.
A former New York City public school teacher, Walker has dreamt of a Voices magazine by and for children for years. She started teaching journalism after school as a volunteer in the late 1990s when her daughter was enrolled, and then three years ago launched her current effort at Wellwood. In the past, her charges produced a quality newsletter at the end of the year. She hopes to expand the program to other county schools.
