Choosing toys

A good toy loses to a tablet for a reason that has nothing to do with the toy. Watch when the crying actually starts.

Nobody owns the word, so any seller can use it. Here is the test we run on the toy in your hand.

Arguing about plastic goes nowhere. Arguing about volume, three weeks early, with a list, is a different conversation.

At twelve months there are three things a child can already do. Buy for one of them rather than five.

The clearest difference is not the philosophy. It is what happens when a child puts the wrong piece in.

Two studies have actually measured this. What moved was not the thing the label promises, and it was not really about the toy at all.