OF BOOKS AND TOYS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 15, 6 October 1939, Page 11

OF BOOKS AND TOYS

GET more and more convinced that it is true ] that we, as a people, as mothers, love our children in the right way-that is, the way that looks first to their good, and after-and rather cautiously-to their enjoyment. Odd letters find their way in to me, and here is one from a mother in Taranaki. "Dear Kay,-I like to read what you say about children, I suppose because I am so interested in mine, Geoffrey, aged eight, and Kathleen, } aged five. But I often wish I could buy them | the lovely toys we see in town, and I want to ask you if you think they are important? We live in the country, which isn’t so bad." Yours faithfully, B.M., Taranaki. Dear B.M., may I answer your letter for all mothers as well as you-aloud, as it were? We all wonder occasionally, I think, whether perhaps we ought to make these "special efforts" about toys and extras for our children. There are toys worth trying to manage when your children are young. They are mostly referred to as "scientific toys" and help a baby’s development in the business of learning colours and shapes, giving him interesting exercise (like hammering wooden pegs into holes and back again) and helping him to hold things rightly and to construct. You'll see a good many of these toys in any modern Kindergarten. They’re made in Germany and America and England. I do think these are important for the city child. But there you have it. As you say, the "country . . . isn’t so bad." It provides most of these activities more normally — and many more. Kathleen and Geoffrey have probably had a tremendously jolly childhood to date with streams and rushes and swinging boughs for playthings. And what is more, they had had to work out their own playto use their wits, and without the help of the scientific toy-maker. I know a small " Refugee" of seven whose mother was sad for him that all his splendid toys had to be left behind in Vienna. He lives in the country. She is surprised, now, that he has never once asked for them. He’s a very busy little person and probably ten times as happy! Books are different, though. Try to afford good books — well written, well pictured -even if only few. There are splendid ones now. Ask your bookseller to show you some next time you’re in town. Besides being packed with interest they'll provide

more than one-half of any child’s education. —

KAY