Highlights Magazine vs The Glow Line Mail Club

Where they differ

Both are activities clubs. Past that they pull apart: Highlights Magazine also covers books & magazines, while The Glow Line Mail Club adds letters and stickers.

Highlights Magazine is the cheaper of the two — $47.50/year against $12 a drop, roughly 34% less on a monthly basis. Whether that gap means anything depends on what turns up: the dearer club is not automatically sending more, and on a gift the up-front total matters more than the monthly figure.

They arrive on different rhythms. Highlights Magazine comes monthly; The Glow Line Mail Club comes every other month. More frequent post is not automatically better — it is more to keep up with, and for some children the wait is part of it.

The age ranges differ too: Highlights Magazine is pitched at ages 6–12, The Glow Line Mail Club at ages 3+. Match the reading level rather than the birthday — a child who cannot yet read the letter alone needs an adult in the loop either way.

Shipping is the one that rules a club out rather than in: Highlights Magazine ships to US, The Glow Line Mail Club to Worldwide.

The Glow Line Mail Club expects a reply — there is something to write back to. Highlights Magazine is one-way. A write-back club is the better one if an adult will actually sit down and help; if not, it turns into a pile of unanswered post.

What each one sends

Highlights Magazine

A monthly print magazine for school-age children with stories, puzzles, hidden pictures, craft ideas and non-fiction features. It is a magazine rather than a letter club — no personalization and nothing to write back to — but it is the cheapest reliable way to get something in the mail for a child every month.

The Glow Line Mail Club

Each drop is built around one feeling and works through it by post: an illustrated letter, an affirmation card, a sticker, and an activity that changes with the theme — a feelings wheel one time, a scavenger hunt the next. The aim is to give a child the words for what is going on inside, a little at a time, six times a year rather than monthly.

Which one to pick

We are not going to pretend there is a winner here — they are close enough to be on the same shortlist, which is why this page exists. What we would say is that the choice usually turns on the household rather than the club: how much adult time there is, whether the child reads independently yet, and whether you want post that asks something of them or post that simply arrives.

Read the full listings before deciding, and follow through to each club's own site — prices, terms and gift options are theirs to change and ours only to record.