(Note: This is a good question to ask about your main characters.)
30 thoughts on “Reader Friday: Your Favorite Childhood Toy”
Well the best toys from childhood came once my baby brother was born. See my parents bought me all the boring girl crap–dolls and whatnot. YAWN.
But after my little brother came along there were Tonka trucks and Legos and such. Now THOSE are some fun toys.
Thanks, Donny.
“Remember boys:
Tonka toys
were made just for you.”
That was the jingle back in the late 50s and early 60s. The ad men (mad men) were limiting their market. I wonder if a Peggy Olson was trying to tell them…
I remember that jingle! And I had some Tonka trucks…they were great for running through the sand-pile cities my sister and I used to make.
What little boy didn’t have a Tonka truck, it was a rite of passage.
Probably any generic “cap” gun. My brother and I would play cops and robbers. I envy today’s children with the Nerf Weapon Universe. I would have gone “gaga” over that stuff as a child.
Phil, did you ever take the roll of cap “bullets” and set them off by hitting them with a hammer on the sidewalk? That was great fun.
OH!! That was such fun! Or a brick!
Yes! Used to smash them with rocks. Ooooh, and make little holes in pop cans, stick a firecracker in said hole, put new object in coffee can with a few inches of water, light it and watch that puppy shoot into the air. Ah, the explosives of childhood.
Ha, I did the same thing…hitting them with rocks on the sidewalk. It WAS great fun. And, I loved the smell.
Yep! Fun!
My favorite was a sock monkey. This is a terrible thing to admit but I stole it from a friend. I was maybe 7? I also got busted for shoplifting Barbie clothes at KMart when I was 11 — hey, they were expensive and I couldn’t afford them! — which sort of scared me straight.
I still have the sock monkey. At least I gave it a good home. In fact, I have a big collection of vintage sock monkeys…the more beat-up and beloved the better. Sock monkeys have appeared in several of my books. 🙂
Peter Bear – he went everywhere with me, visited the doll hospital a number of times for repairs and I still have him (He’s a pretty beat up old bear but he has got some hand-knitted sweaters from my mum to keep him warm).
Is he like Radar O’Reilly’s bear? 😎
My favorite childhood toys was actually an old fashioned floor brush. My Dad and I used to play bomber; I was a bomber pilot flying over to bomb the Germans. He would drop the brush when I called out “Bombs away!”
And, don’t give me no hard time about bombing Germans, Keemosabe. If you do, I have a brush with the names of you and your town on it.
My mother used to design and construct stuffed animals to pay her way through college at Berea College in Kentucky. She had wonderful skills with patterns and fabric. She could make any kind of an toy, so when I was very little, she made me my first stuffed animal, My Blue Pup.
My Blue Pup was perfect in every way. He was just exactly the right size for my young hands. He had the perfect textural feel, not too hard, not to squishy. His head didn’t wobble the way a lot of stuffed toys do as they grow old with love. He was blue calico. I loved his medium blue color. The flowers I could take or leave, but the color was my favorite.
I had My Blue Pup for many years, he followed me everywhere, joining in all my important activities. Riding in the basket of my little blue bike with training wheels. Joining me at tea parties, watching safely from the sidelines as I made mud cakes or splashed in the creek behind the house. He was always with me until, when I was about 5 or so, a mean boy grabbed him and held him hostage. Mean Boy was laughing and throwing My Blue Pup high into the air. I was sure he must be frightened, and frantically tried to rescue My Blue Pup. But Mean Boy was bigger, taller and more willing to shove and push me to the ground. I couldn’t get him back.
Then the Worst Thing happened.
My Blue Pup flew up in the air. Up, up, up, until as he descended down the parabola of his flight, the large Maple tree reached out and snagged him from the air and held him there, trapped in the crook of a branch. I was utterly devastated. He was so high up and the branch was so thin. There was no rescue possible. I shook the tree, and screamed in panic, but even my parents, Fixers of Every Problem, could not help.
I was shattered.
My mother knew my grief and went right to work making me a new stuffed blue dog. But NEW Blue Pup was not right. He was stuffed too tightly, the fabric not as soft and the flowers just… not right. Even his eyes were a little off, slightly not level, not deeply set enough. My adult self is grateful now for how hard my mother tried, but for my five-year-old self, NEW Blue Pup was no adequate replacement for the sainted original. I tried to love him, I really did. but I just couldn’t. I felt guilty that my mother had tried so hard to make an exact replica for me. But I just could not simply flip a switch and divert my love to this… imposter. So NEW Blue Pup sat on a shelf as heartbroken and forlorn as I was.
Then, one spring day two years later…
The wind blew the smell of fresh flowers and the Michigan sun shone with the vigor of renewed life. The Maple tree was shaking its held from side to side, bowing low each time.
And suddenly it let go of My Blue Pup. He went flying and landed on the front lawn. I found him there, almost by accident, before Mean Boy could happen upon him and steal him from me again. By some miracle he was virtually unharmed. I scooped him up and went running into the house, ecstatic. My mother was so happy for me. She checked him out, proclaimed him healthy and gave him a bath with a load of other laundry. It took a long time, but once My Blue Pup was dry he was nearly as good as new. A little faded perhaps, but fine and ready for action.
Of course I was now seven and much too old to play with stuffed animals in quite the same way. But that didn’t matter. My Blue Pup was back. I placed him reverently on the shelf in my room. The same shelf where the ever-hopeful but eternally rejected NEW Blue Pup sat. Now they could be friends together.
My family has moved so many times since that long-ago time, and I’m a respectable middle aged woman now. As with many children, I grew older and my journey toward Adulthood pulled me away from those precious attachments of youth. I don’t know what ultimately happened to My Blue Pup. I hope he found a place out there where another child can caress his perfect, soft and tender calico hide. I’m pretty sure that’s not what happened, but I will choose to believe otherwise.
For me, all I have is memories of My Blue Pup, and my mother, who made my best childhood friend.
That is a beautiful story, even brought a tear to the eye of Gerald the Troll.
Have to admit I spent more time playing with Barbie dolls than any other toys. I think that means I was pretty typical of young girls of my era. Oh, and “Chatty Cathy”. Her string broke and she stopped talking after a few play dates, so she was a bit of a let down… ?
But maybe you started making up word for her? You know…writing dialogue?
I absolutely LOVED my Chatty Cathy! I would pull her string and whatever she said turned into a story conversation with her. After I was too old for her, I loved board games. Candy Land, Operation, etc. I was much more likely to be with a book than a toy though. I would read to Chatty Cathy too. 🙂
My favorite toy wasn’t a toy. It was a child-size snow shovel… to help my father clear the front walk of snow.
I slept with it.
It depends on what age. When I was a baby/toddler, I had a lion that I loved. It was good sized – it was, after all, a lion – and I would ride it around our kitchen floor. And I loved my panda bear, too. My earliest memory is of my paternal grandfather giving it to me in the backseat of a the car on a cold December night. I was eleven months old.
When I was a little older I don’t know that I had a favorite toy, but I remember playing a lot with Crystal Climbers, which were building things, but colored plastic and not so gender specific. I had a lot of them.
After that I discovered Barbies, and I had tons of Barbie dolls. I had regular and Malibu, and all the friends, including Stacey and Malibu Skipper. During this time the local PBS station ran/re-ran Elizabeth R and other Tudor history British shows. I loved these. My favorite game with my Barbies became Anne Boleyn, whereby I would place my sentenced to death Barbie on the end of the coffee table and behead her with my sword/hand. Then I’d put her head back on and do it all over again. I got my friends in on the act, too. It was great fun. Nowadays I imagine they’d send us all out for counseling. Sigh.
Ha, love this! My Barbies were kidnapped and yours were beheaded. Yep, counseling for sure!
My favorite childhood toys were Barbies, particularly a Malibu Barbie who had silky straight blonde hair and VERY light blue eyes that were unique in that they were sort of crinkled/narrowed. 🙂 We couldn’t afford the store bought outfits for them, but my sister and I would take scraps of material and cut arm-holes in them, then cut a strip of cloth for a belt. We loved these homemade dresses and we made tons. Unfortunately, our Barbies were always barefoot, but they made do. We played for hours upon hours. We couldn’t afford Ken dolls either, but we made up boyfriends and they were always celebrities, like Bobby Sherman or David Cassidy. My sister and I were and are HUGE Elvis fans, but since we both would have wanted Elvis as a boyfriend, we had an agreement that he was off-limits in our make-believe land. Our Barbies got kidnapped a lot, but the hot guys always rescued them. 🙂 Thanks for the fun trip down memory lane!
You’re so right! So many of Stephen King’s books are echoes of Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes.
Matchbox/Hoy Wheels cars & trucks, small plastic “airplanes of the world” the dentist “gave away” ( the X-15 was the best), and something we called the “building set” – plastic façades that snapped to end-walls and came with several different roofs~ they were all stored in the same box, so were pretty much “one toy” ~ oh, and an Erector Set~
Any wonder I stumbled into a day-job in architecture?
🙂
Hmm…either the pogo stick or my slinky. The pogo stick kept me occupied for hours and when it rained, what’s more fun than walking a slinky down the stairs?
My daughter loved Barbies, so I bought my son, who is two years older, a Ken doll, thinking they might play together. Ken turned into an evil superman who flew over Barbie’s house dropping bombs. The two kids played together a lot but never with Barbie and Ken.
Gosh, I hate to date myself….but anyone remember Dick Tracy comic strip? My favorite doll was Sparkle Plenty with her long blonde, combable hair….and, a Dale Evans cowgirl outfit complete with pistol.
Well the best toys from childhood came once my baby brother was born. See my parents bought me all the boring girl crap–dolls and whatnot. YAWN.
But after my little brother came along there were Tonka trucks and Legos and such. Now THOSE are some fun toys.
Thanks, Donny.
“Remember boys:
Tonka toys
were made just for you.”
That was the jingle back in the late 50s and early 60s. The ad men (mad men) were limiting their market. I wonder if a Peggy Olson was trying to tell them…
I remember that jingle! And I had some Tonka trucks…they were great for running through the sand-pile cities my sister and I used to make.
What little boy didn’t have a Tonka truck, it was a rite of passage.
Probably any generic “cap” gun. My brother and I would play cops and robbers. I envy today’s children with the Nerf Weapon Universe. I would have gone “gaga” over that stuff as a child.
Phil, did you ever take the roll of cap “bullets” and set them off by hitting them with a hammer on the sidewalk? That was great fun.
OH!! That was such fun! Or a brick!
Yes! Used to smash them with rocks. Ooooh, and make little holes in pop cans, stick a firecracker in said hole, put new object in coffee can with a few inches of water, light it and watch that puppy shoot into the air. Ah, the explosives of childhood.
Ha, I did the same thing…hitting them with rocks on the sidewalk. It WAS great fun. And, I loved the smell.
Yep! Fun!
My favorite was a sock monkey. This is a terrible thing to admit but I stole it from a friend. I was maybe 7? I also got busted for shoplifting Barbie clothes at KMart when I was 11 — hey, they were expensive and I couldn’t afford them! — which sort of scared me straight.
I still have the sock monkey. At least I gave it a good home. In fact, I have a big collection of vintage sock monkeys…the more beat-up and beloved the better. Sock monkeys have appeared in several of my books. 🙂
Peter Bear – he went everywhere with me, visited the doll hospital a number of times for repairs and I still have him (He’s a pretty beat up old bear but he has got some hand-knitted sweaters from my mum to keep him warm).
Is he like Radar O’Reilly’s bear? 😎
My favorite childhood toys was actually an old fashioned floor brush. My Dad and I used to play bomber; I was a bomber pilot flying over to bomb the Germans. He would drop the brush when I called out “Bombs away!”
And, don’t give me no hard time about bombing Germans, Keemosabe. If you do, I have a brush with the names of you and your town on it.
My mother used to design and construct stuffed animals to pay her way through college at Berea College in Kentucky. She had wonderful skills with patterns and fabric. She could make any kind of an toy, so when I was very little, she made me my first stuffed animal, My Blue Pup.
My Blue Pup was perfect in every way. He was just exactly the right size for my young hands. He had the perfect textural feel, not too hard, not to squishy. His head didn’t wobble the way a lot of stuffed toys do as they grow old with love. He was blue calico. I loved his medium blue color. The flowers I could take or leave, but the color was my favorite.
I had My Blue Pup for many years, he followed me everywhere, joining in all my important activities. Riding in the basket of my little blue bike with training wheels. Joining me at tea parties, watching safely from the sidelines as I made mud cakes or splashed in the creek behind the house. He was always with me until, when I was about 5 or so, a mean boy grabbed him and held him hostage. Mean Boy was laughing and throwing My Blue Pup high into the air. I was sure he must be frightened, and frantically tried to rescue My Blue Pup. But Mean Boy was bigger, taller and more willing to shove and push me to the ground. I couldn’t get him back.
Then the Worst Thing happened.
My Blue Pup flew up in the air. Up, up, up, until as he descended down the parabola of his flight, the large Maple tree reached out and snagged him from the air and held him there, trapped in the crook of a branch. I was utterly devastated. He was so high up and the branch was so thin. There was no rescue possible. I shook the tree, and screamed in panic, but even my parents, Fixers of Every Problem, could not help.
I was shattered.
My mother knew my grief and went right to work making me a new stuffed blue dog. But NEW Blue Pup was not right. He was stuffed too tightly, the fabric not as soft and the flowers just… not right. Even his eyes were a little off, slightly not level, not deeply set enough. My adult self is grateful now for how hard my mother tried, but for my five-year-old self, NEW Blue Pup was no adequate replacement for the sainted original. I tried to love him, I really did. but I just couldn’t. I felt guilty that my mother had tried so hard to make an exact replica for me. But I just could not simply flip a switch and divert my love to this… imposter. So NEW Blue Pup sat on a shelf as heartbroken and forlorn as I was.
Then, one spring day two years later…
The wind blew the smell of fresh flowers and the Michigan sun shone with the vigor of renewed life. The Maple tree was shaking its held from side to side, bowing low each time.
And suddenly it let go of My Blue Pup. He went flying and landed on the front lawn. I found him there, almost by accident, before Mean Boy could happen upon him and steal him from me again. By some miracle he was virtually unharmed. I scooped him up and went running into the house, ecstatic. My mother was so happy for me. She checked him out, proclaimed him healthy and gave him a bath with a load of other laundry. It took a long time, but once My Blue Pup was dry he was nearly as good as new. A little faded perhaps, but fine and ready for action.
Of course I was now seven and much too old to play with stuffed animals in quite the same way. But that didn’t matter. My Blue Pup was back. I placed him reverently on the shelf in my room. The same shelf where the ever-hopeful but eternally rejected NEW Blue Pup sat. Now they could be friends together.
My family has moved so many times since that long-ago time, and I’m a respectable middle aged woman now. As with many children, I grew older and my journey toward Adulthood pulled me away from those precious attachments of youth. I don’t know what ultimately happened to My Blue Pup. I hope he found a place out there where another child can caress his perfect, soft and tender calico hide. I’m pretty sure that’s not what happened, but I will choose to believe otherwise.
For me, all I have is memories of My Blue Pup, and my mother, who made my best childhood friend.
That is a beautiful story, even brought a tear to the eye of Gerald the Troll.
Have to admit I spent more time playing with Barbie dolls than any other toys. I think that means I was pretty typical of young girls of my era. Oh, and “Chatty Cathy”. Her string broke and she stopped talking after a few play dates, so she was a bit of a let down… ?
But maybe you started making up word for her? You know…writing dialogue?
I absolutely LOVED my Chatty Cathy! I would pull her string and whatever she said turned into a story conversation with her. After I was too old for her, I loved board games. Candy Land, Operation, etc. I was much more likely to be with a book than a toy though. I would read to Chatty Cathy too. 🙂
My favorite toy wasn’t a toy. It was a child-size snow shovel… to help my father clear the front walk of snow.
I slept with it.
It depends on what age. When I was a baby/toddler, I had a lion that I loved. It was good sized – it was, after all, a lion – and I would ride it around our kitchen floor. And I loved my panda bear, too. My earliest memory is of my paternal grandfather giving it to me in the backseat of a the car on a cold December night. I was eleven months old.
When I was a little older I don’t know that I had a favorite toy, but I remember playing a lot with Crystal Climbers, which were building things, but colored plastic and not so gender specific. I had a lot of them.
After that I discovered Barbies, and I had tons of Barbie dolls. I had regular and Malibu, and all the friends, including Stacey and Malibu Skipper. During this time the local PBS station ran/re-ran Elizabeth R and other Tudor history British shows. I loved these. My favorite game with my Barbies became Anne Boleyn, whereby I would place my sentenced to death Barbie on the end of the coffee table and behead her with my sword/hand. Then I’d put her head back on and do it all over again. I got my friends in on the act, too. It was great fun. Nowadays I imagine they’d send us all out for counseling. Sigh.
Ha, love this! My Barbies were kidnapped and yours were beheaded. Yep, counseling for sure!
My favorite childhood toys were Barbies, particularly a Malibu Barbie who had silky straight blonde hair and VERY light blue eyes that were unique in that they were sort of crinkled/narrowed. 🙂 We couldn’t afford the store bought outfits for them, but my sister and I would take scraps of material and cut arm-holes in them, then cut a strip of cloth for a belt. We loved these homemade dresses and we made tons. Unfortunately, our Barbies were always barefoot, but they made do. We played for hours upon hours. We couldn’t afford Ken dolls either, but we made up boyfriends and they were always celebrities, like Bobby Sherman or David Cassidy. My sister and I were and are HUGE Elvis fans, but since we both would have wanted Elvis as a boyfriend, we had an agreement that he was off-limits in our make-believe land. Our Barbies got kidnapped a lot, but the hot guys always rescued them. 🙂 Thanks for the fun trip down memory lane!
The Strange Change Machine. Don’t you love that name? It sounds like something you’d find in a Stephen King story. Here are the nostalgic details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Change_Machine
Strange Change Machine sounds Bradburian to me~
You’re so right! So many of Stephen King’s books are echoes of Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes.
Matchbox/Hoy Wheels cars & trucks, small plastic “airplanes of the world” the dentist “gave away” ( the X-15 was the best), and something we called the “building set” – plastic façades that snapped to end-walls and came with several different roofs~ they were all stored in the same box, so were pretty much “one toy” ~ oh, and an Erector Set~
Any wonder I stumbled into a day-job in architecture?
🙂
Hmm…either the pogo stick or my slinky. The pogo stick kept me occupied for hours and when it rained, what’s more fun than walking a slinky down the stairs?
My daughter loved Barbies, so I bought my son, who is two years older, a Ken doll, thinking they might play together. Ken turned into an evil superman who flew over Barbie’s house dropping bombs. The two kids played together a lot but never with Barbie and Ken.
Gosh, I hate to date myself….but anyone remember Dick Tracy comic strip? My favorite doll was Sparkle Plenty with her long blonde, combable hair….and, a Dale Evans cowgirl outfit complete with pistol.