Word: plasticizers
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...year after it erupted in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Khaled Tbeilah, 14, who worked in a candy factory to help feed his family when he was not throwing stones at Israeli patrols, became one of the most recent Palestinian "martyrs" on Oct. 18, when a plastic bullet fired by an Israeli soldier in the West Bank city of Nablus killed him. His parents and nine siblings are grieving but are no less determined to fight on against Israel's occupation of their land...
...pushing its Special Blessings doll, with Velcro hands that clasp and floppy knees that genuflect. The company wanted to develop a doll that "would appeal to a child's image of God as a big, * amorphous friend." Kitchenware is also popular. "I am getting my daughter a set of plastic pots and pans and a little stove and sink, which I also had," says Hillary Adams, 30, mother of Natalie, 2. "But the best are the most solid, basic toys like her wooden blocks, which have enduring value through her different stages of development...
...still true that toys that teach unobtrusively have real staying power. "Children are extraordinarily curious about their environment," says Richard Garvey, vice president of marketing for Lego. "Fad items like Hula Hoops do not engage a child's innate desire to learn." That desire largely accounts for the ubiquitous plastic Lego bricks, which can now be found in 55% of American homes with children under 15. "The best thing about the Lego blocks," says Paul Matthews, 37, father of Paul Chandler Matthews IV, 3, "is that he always builds a whole city, which I think is great. Then he destroys...
While grownups are busy becoming children again, children are intent on becoming grownups. In addition to the play pots and pans and stoves that cook, there are plastic telephones and radios. Above all, children are drawn to the "action figures" and fashion dolls, which allow them to invent grownups over whom they have complete control...
...imaginative appeal -- the greatest strength may lie not in the child's reaction to them but in the parents'. As mothers and fathers grow ever busier and more pressed for time, they frequently resort to toys that do the parenting for them: the bears that tell bedtime stories, the plastic heroes who teach virtue. For many children, a toy whose nostalgic appeal and sheer pleasure lure parents back into the playroom may be the best present...