Kid Stuff: Great Toys from Our Childhood - Softcover

--San Jose Mercury News, December 1996
To most adults, Christmas is a Christian holy day, celebrated in America with touches of German tradition, Victorian style and secular good will. But to most small children -- Linus and Charlie Brown excepted -- what Christmas is really all about is Getting Stuff.

Neat stuff. Cool stuff. And, in the babyboomer days, stuff like the Play-Doh Fun Factory and Malibu Barbie, Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robots ("Hey -- you knocked my block off!") and the ever-popular Mystery Date.

David Hoffman collects tons of under-the-tree goodies like those in Kid Stuff, and it's like a joyful trip back to your childhood, or maybe up to your parent's attic (assuming that they were generous enough to buy you all these toys to begin with, and then canny enough to save them).

G.I. Joe, Yahtzee, Wooly Willy ("Draw Whiskers, Hair and Eyebrows With This Magic Wand") -- they're all here. But what makes this more than just a wallow in nostalgia is that along with the careful photographs of all these goodies come histories of their invention.

The pictures of the toys offer some childish thrills; the stories behind them offer adult lessons in optimism and perseverance. It's a little bit insipiring to learn that an imaginative French garage mechanic invented the Etch A Sketch, or that a Danish carpenter begat Lego. Aren't you glad to know that Colorforms were dreamed up, not by some giant corporation, but by two hungry art students named Harry and Patricia Kislevitz? The prototype was made out of a sheet of discarded vinyl they got from a friend in the handbag business.

If you don't feel in the mood for inspirational stories about people making fortunes, though, you can always page through the pictures. Here's the Magic '8' Ball (along with some trade secrets about just what's inside). The original you'll-poke-somebody's-eye-out Mr. Potato Head parts. And the great, immortal View-Master (along with a helpful source for discs and discussion in Corte Madera. If you want to subscribe to a collector's magazine, get a catalog or just talk 3D, call (415) 924-3356 and ask for Dalia.)

The views those plastic binoculars provided; however, are nothing compared to the rosy visions of childhood that memories deliver. Objects and events from those days can be viewed through the foggiest and most flattering of filters.