Internationally, people are getting their news and information digitally instead of on paper more and more frequently. Sales of e-books have surpassed sales of hard cover books. But in France, a children's newspaper is bucking the trend. Even cooler, the newspaper is participatory, welcoming suggestions and feedback from their young readership.

In France, only 10% of young people read newspapers (down from 30% ten years ago). The French government is so concerned with this statistic, it started an initiative called Mon Journal Offert, or My Complimentary Paper. The program offers people ages 18-24 a free yearlong subscription to the newspaper of their choice. 200,000 people quickly subscribed, but there was little evidence that they paid for a renewed subscription after the year was up.

In 1995, two people decided to create a newspaper specifically targeted at 10-14 year olds in the hopes that they would love it, and grow into older newspaper readers. The paper, Mon Quotidien, or My Daily, was so successful that circulation reached 50,000 copies in the third year. Since then, they've created Petit Quotidien for 7-10 year olds and L'Actu for 14-17 year olds. Twice weekly, the papers invite some of its readers to help edit the paper and choose content. The writers pitch stories and hear reader feedback. The papers are published weekly, including colorful news, cartoons, and quizzes.

These papers have certainly helped news readership amongst young people, but they're still struggling for subscriptions. Circulation is at 165,000. Teachers get 15 million free copies every year, but it's hard to get kids to ask their parents to pay for their own subscription.

What can you do?

Do you read the news? Do your friends? Start a newspaper at your school. Translate big newspaper issues into a format your peers can appreciate.

What do you think about the argument that physical books and newspapers should lose out to internet media? Make a blog to get news to your peers. And if the news is worth using paper, make sure you don't waste paper on a party. Recycle and don't pollute.