A look at the seedy underbelly of the toy industry, from R&D to marketing to manufacturing, backed up with a lot of anecdata and industry case studies. ( )

The reader gets a thorough education on the history and workings of the toy industry. From the heyday of independent toy inventors of the early 1900's when there were about 500 toy makers, to now, a hundred years later, where Hasbro and Mattel control about a third of the U.S market, and the focus of toy makers has changed from entertaining and pleasing children, to satisfying their actual customers which are the large retailers, "that insist on immense and instant returns."

The preface mentions a disturbing trend called KGOY, Kids Getting Older Younger, that toy companies, rather than trying to remedy, exploit to increase their sales. It is "encouraged by the toy industry's own marketing methods of using sex and violence to attract kid sales."

The problem is not only the questionable ethics of the marketing method, but many of the toys themselves. The author quotes from
Dr. Benjamin Spock that toys produced today instead of encouraging creative play, actully stifle it, "The action comes from the toy, not from the child. The play patterns that result are structured by the movies or television programs that spawn them, or from the built-in electronics..."

The American toy industry is a $21 billion business. Fewer than 4% of the world's children are American, yet, American children consume more than 40% of the world's toys. "Instead of being regarded as vulnerable and in need of nurture, children have become an exploitable resource." Marketing rules, "children's television programs and some movies exist only becuaee of the product tie-in and are structured to maximize sales of those products."

Most toys in the U.S. are made in China, and I was not surprised to read about the numerous labor violations that are part of the process of bringing our kids' toys to store shelves. Sweatshop conditions in China have become almost a cliché so that nothing in that chapter was a revelation.

I was not surprised by the information in this book, but I was left feeling helpless. My granddaughter has shelves of Barbie movies, most of which I bought for her. I want her to have toys and enjoy them, but I don't want to hand her to Mattel on a platter. The author's only suggestion is to resist the advertising and show love to our children in other ways than buying them toys. But I think it's a much bigger problem than that and it effects the basic structure of our society.

I don't know how anyone can read this book and still think corporate capitalism is the best economic option. ( )