- Best Toy#1
Grimm’s Large Rainbow
Grimm’s Large Rainbow is the rare toy that becomes more useful because it refuses to specify the game. It can be tunnel, bridge, landscape, sculpture or obstacle, depending on the hour and the child. The colors are cheerful without plastic glare, and the wood ages into the room rather than out of it. It is expensive for a toy, but cheap for an object that might survive several imaginations.
- #2
LEGO Classic Large Creative Brick Box
LEGO’s Classic brick box is the democratic answer to childhood construction. No franchise, no prescribed universe, just enough color and possibility to make a floor disappear under invention. It encourages the best kind of mess: iterative, spatial, stubborn and occasionally brilliant. Many toys entertain a child. Bricks recruit a child into authorship, which is better.
- #3
MAGNA-TILES Classic 100-Piece Set
MAGNA-TILES have the immediate satisfaction of a good interface. The pieces snap, stand, glow near a window and turn geometry into something children can feel with their hands. They are excellent for collaborative play because the structure is always growing, falling or being reconsidered. The best educational toys do not announce their educational purpose. They just make the child keep building.