Today's recession-era kids could learn a thing or two from their Depression-era counterparts.
"There's something to be said for the creativity of the kids who had to make their own toys," says Tim Walsh, author of Timeless Toys and Wham-o Super Book.
Children of the Great Depression of 1929-1939 were famously inventive, making toys out of necessity. But Walsh says children of all generations enjoy simple toys that allow for what toy and child development experts call "open-ended play."
That's industry speak for what parents call imagination.
Take the lowly stick. It's just a stick, right?
Or is it a magic wand, a sword, or with the addition of a tube sock and yarn — a stick horse?
See the possibilities?
Kids do.
That's why the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, N.Y., inducted the stick into its toy hall of fame this year alongside the skateboard and the baby doll.
Walsh encourages parents who are unable to afford the $189 robotic dog on the 2008 Toys 'R' Us Hot Toys List to take heart.
"It's just a robotic dog. Now the box it came in, that could be a space ship... Parents often say, 'My kid plays more with the box than the toy that came with it.'"
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