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The best toys, games and books in 25 years.

Kids play because it's fun, and because it's their job to play. It's how they learn to solve problems and relate to others. Making sure they have good books and toys is like making sure they have a good set of tools -- tools for discovery, creativity and expression.

Parents' Choice Foundation has selected the best in kids' toys and media for 25 years now. To celebrate, we created an honor roll of products that help kids grow, physically and mentally. And they're fairly priced, safe and fun.

Among our Best 25 Toys:

• Skwish Classic (Manhattan Toy, ages 3 months and up; $14.99). Young ones will love the colored, nontoxic beads that slide easily back and forth. Suitably named, this toy truly does squish "flat and bounce back."
  
  
• With Groovie Blocks (Uncle Goose Toys, ages 4-8; $33.95), a set of innovative wooden blocks, children can combine construction play, mathematical discoveries and pattern-making. Each block has interlocking grooves for sturdy building.
  
  
• Boomwhackers (Whacky Music, Inc., ages 4 and up; $24.98) lets each "band member" hold one or two of the eight perfectly tuned, brightly colored plastic percussion tubes and whack them against a hard surface to produce the intended sound.
  
  
• SET (Set Enterprises, ages 6 and up; $12) is a game of logic, concentration and speed.
  
  
• With Pictionary Junior (Hasbro, ages 7-11; $16.99), clues to 1,440 possible words are given in pictures.
  
  
• For slightly older kids, Rush Hour (ThinkFun, ages 8 and up; $15.99), The a-MAZE-ing Labyrinth (Ravensburger, ages 8 and up; $25.98), and Rubik's Cube (Hasbro, ages 8 and up; $9.99) are strong choices.

And from our Best 25 Books: Choices for the infant-through-age-nine group include:

• My Very First Mother Goose, edited by Iona Opie and illustrated by Rosemary Wells. A treasury of classic nursery rhymes and other stories (Candlewick Press, $21.99).
  
  
• The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales, illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon and told by Virginia Hamilton (Knopf, $13).
  
  
• William Steig's Doctor De Soto (Sunburst, $5.95), the story of wit and pluck winning out.
  
  
• Ian Falconer's charming account of a charismatic little pig, Olivia (Atheneum, $16.95).
  
  
• Hey Willy, See the Pyramids by Maira Kalman (Viking Press, $16.99), a collection of 11 very short stories, told by big sister Lulu.
  
  
• Beverly Cleary's beloved Ramona Quimby, Age 8 (HarperTrophy, $5.99), about a girl who boosts her family's spirits during tough times.
  
  

For ages 10 and up, our choices for the Best 25 books include:

• Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman (HarperTrophy, $6.50), about a girl in 1290 England.
  
  
• The Kestrel by Lloyd Alexander (Puffin, $5.99), the story of Mickle, Queen Augusta of Westmark.
  
  
• The New Way Things Work, written and illustrated by David Macaulay (Houghton Mifflin, $35). A guide to the technical processes of everyday devices.
  
  
• Wayside School Is Falling Down by Louis Sachar (HarperTrophy, $5.99). Built sideways, with 30 floors, the school endures a bunch of nutty disasters.

  From Reader's Digest - May 2004

   

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