Comments on: seeking Santa's database

Question: seeking Santa's database

libraryhead — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 12:04:01 -0800

Looking for a meta gift advisory for kids.

I need to select Christmas gifts for my nieces and nephews who live halfway across the country and I don't know well. I like to buy high-quality semi-educational toys that they are unlikely to have already. Searches for gift advice this time of year turn up link farms for every piece of cheap plastic crap with a cartoon character on it. Can anyone recommend a source for good generic gift recommendations for kids of different ages based on developmental readiness? For example, our 1 1/2-year-old loves puppets, pull toys, and chunky crayons, but doesn't understand puzzles yet. It would be great to have a similar list for every age from 2 to 8. Out of kindness to the parents, no extravagant, enormous play furniture or blippy bloopy battery-required items, if possible.

Every year I've bought books there have been dups, so I'll be doing BookSense gift certificates this year, but I want something for them to unwrap, as well.

By: Capri

Capri — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 12:21:16 -0800

I love this catalog. Not everything in it meets your description, but a fair bit of it does. http://www.hearthsong.com

By: never used baby shoes

never used baby shoes — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 12:28:28 -0800

My son is age 2, and here are his current faves:

-crayons (of course, we have to be willing to sit and watch him colour, otherwise we would have interesting art everywhere)
-toy cars/trucks/heavy equipment
-Playmobil sets are a recent introduction, and seem to be a hit (toy trains especially)
-Puppets were big, but seem to be fading somewhat
-Pull toys are an off and on thing
-Puzzles

Books are always a big hit in our house (sounds like yours too), and a gift certificate is the way to go. What is exciting for us is that he is now capabae of grabbing his board books and flipping through them on his own...when we read to him now, it's from books a bit longer and more fragile than what I would leave with him on his own.

Individual differences and all that means YMMV.

By: cocoagirl

cocoagirl — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 12:49:28 -0800

I got the book Under the Chinaberry Tree from my sister-in-law who has three kids and runs twice annual book sales for their school. It's basically a book full of book reviews of kids' books, but it's also interspersed with kind words and helpful hints. I use it when I'm trying to find books for my son based on his interests and developmental level.

There's also coolmompicks.com, which tries to avoid plastic stuff and point you to simpler toys. It's organized by age/interest which may help.

By: Kreiger

Kreiger — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 12:58:25 -0800

I have the cutest niece in the world, and Mighty Junior saves my ass twice a year.

By: radioamy

radioamy — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:44:13 -0800

Hearthsong is a great catalog, good choice Capri!

By: kidsleepy

kidsleepy — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:56:24 -0800

Back to Basics toys are usually good for this stuff, and you can search for toys by age level, price, and category.

By: avocet

avocet — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 14:39:17 -0800

Taro Gomi's Scribbles, Doodles and Squiggles, the best colouring books out there. They're more like volumes of creative problem solving for kids, and a number of adults I know have given them as gifts recently. Click on the links for expanded pageviews that give you an idea of what the 'scribbles' are like.

I have one as part of my design portfolio, and my art director gave them out to colleagues at Christmas. In my three years working in an educational toy store, I sold more copies of these books than anything else.

Yes, this was the same guy who wrote Everybody Poops.

By: avocet

avocet — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 14:42:14 -0800

On actually previewing all of the links on the page: none of them are as fantastic as my favourite double-page spread. A number of worried-looking doodled pigs sit on the same empty picture plane as a wolf. Keep the wolf away from the pigs.

By: kmennie

kmennie — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:09:00 -0800

This doesn't quite answer your request for a list, but: novanatural.com has some nice non-crap stuff. I also like Plan Toys.