SupplyToy

Nobody learns arithmetic at a block pile, and that is not what blocks are for. They build the categories arithmetic sits on, and one of them is a milestone you can watch happen on the floor.

Reading to a baby is the single highest-value thing you can do with them. Which board books survive that relationship is a much narrower question than which ones are recommended.

A big number on the box sells a set and then shelves it. What predicts whether a building set is still being used at Easter is how much of it depends on the instruction booklet, and how much of the box can be built into something else.

A button battery lodged in a child's esophagus is a chemical emergency measured in hours, not days. Here is what the compartment rules actually require, how to check a toy in under a minute, and when honey has a role and when it does not.

Age labels sort children coarsely, and the gifts that go wrong usually go wrong for reasons that have nothing to do with the child. A field guide for aunts, uncles and classmates' parties.

The wrong size bike teaches a child to fear riding, and the helmet sticker means less than most parents assume. What to measure, and what to read inside the shell.

Between six and nine a child stops being someone who plays with toys and becomes someone who does something with them. Getting that direction right matters far more than the price on the box.

This is the age where a gift has to look like gear and still let a child make something with their hands. Most of the money spent on nine- to twelve-year-olds goes to the wrong half of that sentence.