Classic Toys of the National Toy Hall of Fame: Celebrating the Greatest Toys of All Time!

By Scott G. Eberle, The Strong National Museum of Play, Jane Wong

Book Overview

From the yo-yo to the hula hoop to the Frisbee(R), Slinky(R), Barbie(R), and so many more, the classic toys honored in the National Toy Hall of Fame bridge all generations with the most basic of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0762435658
• ISBN13: 9780762435654
• Release Date: September 2009
• Publisher: Running Press
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 3.47 lbs.
• Dimensions: 12.3" x 1.0" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Classic Toys, Classic Text, Classy Production

Previous reviews have aptly and admiringly captured the features of this glorious book that will delight and inform readers of every generation (and viewers, for the illustrations and photography are beautifully selected and rendered). The book's topic, expressed in its subtitle, is "A celebration of the greatest toys of all time." It is hard to conceive of a book better designed to make such a celebration satisfying. I read a book more often than I run my dishwasher, and this one was one of the best I've read in years. One reason for its success is that the subtitle's implicit claim--that the book is has indeed identified which toys are "the greatest"--is reasonably assured. It's published by the Strong Museum of Play, one of the nation's biggest history museums and the premier repository of toys. Under its auspices empaneled experts regularly refine criteria and referee objects for inclusion to Strong's National Toy Hall of Fame. At first glance the overjoyed reader might consider ranking superfluous and methods of selection academic, but ultimately they help insure that the toys treated in "Classic Toys" are the ones most readers will most fondly recall. The key and related reason for the book's achievement is the author's ability to enhance our recollections by bringing to his treatments of each toy his remarkable understanding of the social, economic, cultural and material contexts within which these toys where invented, evolved, and played with. Because Scott Eberle, vice president for interpretation at Strong, seems sympathetically to intuit the reasons the reader has come to this book and because he imparts his considerable, concealed erudition with exceptional wit and fine writing, the entertained reader scarcely notices she has been gifted with an appreciable education in American social history and the latest scientific insights into the psychology of play. Indeed, while the book's topics are toys, the subject matter is really play--and that is why the book will hold such fascination for the reader. Don't let the analytical tone of this review deflect your attention from the book's pure delight. When I wasn't smiling as I read, I was laughing out loud. Let me briefly quote, for example, Eberle's treatment of Joseph Merlin's invention of roller skates. Speaking of inventors in general and then of Merlin in particular, the author writes: "Inventors are a quirky lot, no less then than now. If an idea propels them, they'll ignore obstacles and hardships, stopping at nothing to perfect their brainstorm. The problem with Merlin's skates was that they stopped at nothing." "Classic Toys" is itself a toy, an instrument capable of eliciting endless games of nostalgia and play of memory. Reading Eberle's treatment of the many uses of the Radio Flyer, I recalled my father's recollection of his childhood chore during Prohibition of delivering hooch (his father had been a whiskey blender in the old country) in his little red wagon. And I'll swea

The Greatest Toys of All Time!

The next best thing to being a kid again might be recapturing the memories of childhood play through this artfully written and beautifully photographed book. Like the toys it features, there is no right way to enjoy it. Toy narratives are organized by year of induction into the National Toy Hall of Fame but I took my own route, reaching as far back as my memory goes to the rocking horse. As a kid my only goal was to see if I could ride it fast enough to tip it over. In Classic Toys of the National Toy Hall of Fame, author Scott Eberle fills me in on the details kids don't need to know. Weaving cultural history with humor, he sets each toy in the context of the time it was developed and traces its story through the years. I learn that my rocking horse is on the same family tree as wooden horses played with by children three-thousand years ago, that it helped me develop balance, and soothed my developmental need for motion. As Eberle points out, whether it's the rocking horse, the skate board, or Tinker Toys, developmental benefits like these are the dividend rather than the object of children's play.

I still want to be Barbie.

Ah, to be a kid again. Classic Toys of the National Toy Hall of Fame is a page-by-page celebration of what made us happy lo those many years ago...and what still brings us smiles in retrospect. Scott Eberle's winsome text is full of charm and insight and arcane bits of history that delighted me as much as my 1963 Barbie doll and her best friend Midge. More than a nostalgic study, Classic Toys reminds us that even simple toys were never simple and history well-told is always fun. These toys were designed and manufactured to teach us things when our brains and psyches were little sponges. How we imagine, build, dream, share and organize our lives are all lessons steeped in how we played. View-Masters opened our eyes long before Google Earth. The red Radio Flyer got us where we needed to be under our own power (most of the time). Jump ropes were heart-healthy excuses to make new friends. Even Silly Putty gave us the creative lattitude to look at newspapers from a different angle. Each page is elegantly designed with expressive photos that offset the text as perfectly as a well-played turn in Scrabble. Classic Toys is the must-read book for anyone who wants to hold on to the exquisite feeling that only comes from remembering how good it is to play at life.

The coolest toys ever -- and what you never knew about them

Remember the "Seinfeld" episode where Jerry feeds his girlfriend turkey and wine every evening so she'll conk out and he can play with her collection of vintage toys? This book gives the rest of us the same chance to rediscover the coolest toys of all time. Baby Boomers in particular will get a rush of joyful nostalgia with every turn of the page in this handsome volume. Author Scott Eberle showcases dozens of toys that have stood the test of playtime -- all inductees into the National Toy Hall of Fame, housed at the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York (which is, BTW, one of the most fun places my family and I have ever visited). Eberle's writing mixes history and humor as he traces the evolution of the featured toys alongside photos of older and newer models -- a 1965 box of LEGO bricks next to a robot created from the LEGO 2006 Mindstorm construction set, for example. The photos are a treat, from an 1860 portrait of a little girl with a tiny wooden rocking horse by her side, to the 1960s illustrated box containing the Easy-Pop Corn Popper attachment, WHICH FOR SOME REASON MY PARENTS NEVER BOUGHT FOR MY EASY-BAKE OVEN. With an emphasis on creativity, fun, and the endless possibilities of play, the book features not just manufactured toys but also the everyday raw materials that generations of kids have transformed into Something Else: empty cardboard boxes and sticks (the latter featured in the delightful chapter "Poking Around"). There are generic toys -- dolls, marbles, jigsaw puzzles, alphabet blocks and checkers -- as well as specific brands, such as Lionel Trains and Crayola Crayons. But this is not a one-dimensional picture book. Eberle's text is both amusing and insightful. It provides a fascinating glimpse into the invention of the Slinky (created by a nautical engineer), the origins of jacks in ancient Egypt, and the history of the popular game Candy Land, which was created to amuse children recovering from polio. Eberle also evokes the unique sensation of squeezing Play-Doh, "squishy, moist, slightly oily, cool to the touch," describing how "little fists tighten around a Play-Doh ball, and the colorful compound pleasantly extrudes between fingers." (Clearly this is someone who appreciates the properties of a good modeling compound.) He is also refreshingly frank about G.I. Joe's "limited personality" and Barbie's appearance, which "inspires both love and consternation." If you grew up in the '50s and '60s, you'll find a lot of pleasant memories and just as many chuckles in this book's 264 pages. Cuddle up with your child or grandchild and share the fun.

Beutifully written

I am in the toy business and a National Toy Hall of Fame voter so I was particulalry interested in the book, "Classic Toys of the National Toy Hall of Fame." I am, as many of us are, familiar with all of these toys. They are classics. What delighted me was Scott's writing which is at times poetry. Here is his prose in describing Crayola Crayons: "The blue sky; the yellow sun (with stylized rays radiating); the green grass; the brown horse peeking from its rred barn; all these filled in crayon drawings by countless millions." Now let's put it in a poetic format: The blue sky The yellow sun (with stylized rays radiating) The green grass The brown horse peeking from its red barn All these filled in crayon drawings by countless millions The pictures are fantastic but with writing like this they are sometimees besides the point. Wonderful, wonderful job. Richard Gottlieb USA Toy Experts