Smart phones. E-readers. Netbooks. Mama sure does a lot of reading these days, but not too much of the paper-and-ink kind.

Enter: Kidaround. It was as appealing in a tired mother’s hand as a latte and as likely to induce a welcome perk. Yes, you read that last line correctly, it was.

Barbara Hennelly announced on Facebook last month that the November/December 2010 issue of Kidaround would be her last. After publishing the bimonthly magazine for five years, Hennelly decided that the financial stress finally was too much.

The magazine was profitable, but cash flowed too slowly. Delays in collecting advertising revenues meant Hennelly scrambled to pay her print bills each issue.

“I think I was just tired,” she said. “Mommy needed a little break.”

Kidaround, a lifestyle magazine for women ages 21-49 who happened to be parents, wasn’t your average parenting magazine. Hennelly cites defunct teen magazine Sassy as a major influence.

Like Sassy, Kidaround became known for its refreshingly frank content.

“I took a lot of pride in (publishing) an alternative, entertaining publication in our region,” Hennelly said. “It saddened me that it’s not there – as a reader and as a friend to other moms I know that really enjoyed it.”

Fortunately for fans, 15 issues of Kidaround are available on the magazine’s website. Hennelly said she hopes to eventually migrate all of the issues there.

Hennelly founded Kidaround while juggling work as a graphic artist with work as a mom. As a consumer of parenting magazines, she wondered why they used stock photos when there were local photographer moms with willing camera lenses. She also wanted more locally oriented, community content.

Hennelly brought this sensibility to Kidaround. She positioned the magazine as an “exclusive-but-accessible” lifestyle publication.

She served as editor and chief designer of the magazine, and she tapped local moms as photographers, writers, proofreaders and for some designing. Many of these local women and mothers owned fledgling businesses of their own and relied upon exposure in Kidaround as marketing vehicles.

Kidaround soon garnered loyal and avid readership.

“I always had really good feedback on the honest voice that the magazine provided,” Hennelly said.

She was surprised when the May/June 2009 issue proved controversial. “Our Brest Issue Ever” featured a story by Kim Mordecai weighing her decision whether to pursue cosmetic surgery in the wake of childbearing and breastfeeding. Twenty photos depict different women’s chest shapes and stretch-mark streaked abdomens. The photos artfully incorporated humorous props to ensure that the women were not portrayed nude.

Other articles in the issue told of Brazilian waxes, a cruise to Mexico, laptop minis, weight loss and one mom’s description of her bond with her young son.

Hennelly lost one advertiser, but she staked her claim.

She said she recognized that she needed to “(take) care to be responsible but also push the envelope for what’s relevant with us parents today.”

Hennelly is perhaps most proud of how, through Kidaround, she was able to promote Down syndrome awareness.

“Her advocacy for, specifically, the Down syndrome community was stellar,” said Jennifer Varanini Sanchez, who published her first Kidaround article about her third child, her son Joaquin, in the September/October 2008 issue.

Joaquin was diagnosed with Down syndrome when he was 3 months old.

During Hennelly’s pregnancy with her fourth child, she said doctors had believed the child would have Down syndrome. Hennelly acquainted herself with the Down syndrome community in preparation for raising a Down syndrome child. That was how she met Varanini Sanchez.

Hennelly’s son was born healthy, but the experience kindled in her the desire to spread understanding of the vitality and unique gift of children with Down syndrome.

“I think her publication helped break not only stereotypes of children with Down syndrome, but also stereotypes of the mothers and families too,” Varanini Sanchez said.

Varanini Sanchez wrote a later story for the March/April 2010 issue of Kidaround, explaining her family’s desire to add a fourth child through adoption, another child with Down syndrome. Varanini Sanchez adopted her daughter Sofia through the nonprofit organization Reece’s Rainbow.

Because of her article, two additional Down syndrome children found families in the Sacramento region, Varanini Sanchez said.

Hennelly actively sought those stories that would inspire area women.

Mama Bootcamp owner and founder Lori Ann Code described how her relationship with Kidaround took shape.

Three years ago, Hennelly approached Code, then a personal trainer, with a story idea on a boot camp for some moms she knew.

Subsequent to the original story, Code began contributing to the “Healthy Mama” column in Kidaround.

Today, Code has 14 coaches running her boot camps in Folsom, Elk Grove, Roseville and East Sacramento.

A July/August 2010 Kidaround article chronicled how twists in Code’s life path readied her for becoming a life coach for other women.

“(Hennelly) gave me a really beautiful forum to be able to share women’s successes,” Code said. “I will be eternally grateful for that.”

Although Hennelly continued to bring relevant content to Kidaround, the business aspects of publishing were difficult for her.

“There’s the creative editorial side, and then there’s the business side (of magazine publishing), and it’s hard for one person to do it all,” Folsom-based Style Media Group CEO and Publisher Terry Carroll said.

Hennelly said she had no publishing experience prior to Kidaround. There was no seed capital.

She said Kidaround’s competitors included Style and Sactown, although Carroll said his magazine and Hennelly’s competed for ad dollars but not for target readers. He said Style appeals to a wider range of people than Kidaround.

Since Kidaround was free, its revenue was completely advertising-driven, a model that is not unheard of in magazine publishing.

Style has a total circulation of 60,000, more than 30,000 of which is mailed directly to “top-tier homes in the market” free of charge, Carroll said.

Style focuses on select Sacramento suburbs with original, local content for three different publications in Folsom/El Dorado Hills, Roseville/Granite Bay/Rocklin and El Dorado County Foothills. Each publication’s circulation is 20,000, 25,000 and 15,000, respectively.

Kidaround’s circulation of 20,000 spanned the entire Sacramento region.

Carroll said he thought Kidaround’s circulation was too small for the target geographic area.

“(When covering a large geographic area), you’re not going to get a lot of traction in any given market, so it would be harder to get advertisers,” he said.

Sacramento Parent, another free monthly whose target reader and geographic distribution overlaps with Kidaround’s, declined to comment for this article.

Hennelly understands that there might have been ways to save Kidaround. She said she had heard of magazines conducting fundraisers using PayPal. She also could have transitioned the magazine to an online-only format.

But there was something special about hard copy for her. She said she just wasn’t comfortable with an online-only format. Kidaround’s market niche incorporated its look and feel in three dimensions, upgraded paper stock and an artful color palette on the printed page.

Hennelly said she might have continued as an editor of Kidaround if someone had bought it.

She didn’t conform to a predictable editorial calendar, but favored a “loosey-goosey” approach as one of the ways Kidaround “stayed relevant,” she said. “I wasn’t forced into doing a back-to-school issue in September.

“In hindsight, maybe that’s what makes money. It’s just not how I wanted to operate, because it didn’t feel authentic,” she said.

Hennelly’s kids are getting older, and she said she’s not as immersed in the parenting culture these days, with her youngest child now age 4.

She has plenty to keep her busy post-Kidaround, though. She can be found at Romp Creative, the design firm she co-owns with partner Jake Favour. Its office is in Midtown, the same address where she dreamt up Kidaround layouts until last month.

Oh, and then there’s Hennelly’s recently found pastime: burlesque dancing with the Sizzling Sirens.

Photo of Barbara Hennelly by Jake Favour

Kidaround covers courtesy Barbara Hennelly