Scholastic Partners with Teen Magazine in Development of New Bookseries

Posted on February 24, 1999

In conjunction with Teen magazine, Scholastic will publish Diary of a Junior Class, a non-fiction series chronicling the highlights and traumas of the junior year of eight high school students, male and female. Beginning September 1999, the diaries, written by a group of anonymous teens, will document the lives of a real group of friends from the beginning to the end of their junior year in high school.

Daniel Weiss Associates, Inc.'s book packaging subsidiary, 17th Street Productions, licensed the exclusive book rights to Petersen Publishing's Teen magazine and will produce the series. Scholastic and 17th Street expect that this collaboration will attract a large teen readership for this series. In addition to Diary of a Junior Class, 17th Street has plans for an entire program of Teen magazine books.

"Diary of a Junior Class captures the pain and frustration, heartaches and joys of what it's like to be a teenager today as only real teenagers can tell it," commented Jean Feiwel, Senior Vice President, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher, Scholastic Books. "Like MTV's 'Real World,' teen readers will be drawn to these eight real teens, each with their own distinct voice and their own unique stories. The stories are revealing, entertaining, and at times, startling."

"Over the past decade, Teen magazine has found an ever increasing interest and reaction among its readers to its 'real life' stories. We at Teen are thrilled to partner with Scholastic to bring such a relevant series to teen girls," commented Lynn Lehmkuhl, President of Petersen's Youth Group.