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Children today sometimes forget there is a world apart from their PlayStation. It's a world that has been around for many years, and is filled with toys that are fun to play with for hours on end. Many don't even take batteries!

I recently heard that the Toy Museum inducted the lowly wooden stick as this year's toy, and in the recent past it inducted the cardboard box as well. I'm not going to write any more about these two toys, but if you're in a pinch give them a try even if you're only young at heart. If you use your imagination, they can be anything!

When I was growing up I had a few hand-me-down toys like Lincoln Logs, or Tinker Toys that I loved to play with. Every child I know has a few toys like this. These were great toys to me because not only could I make things with them, but afterwards I could pretend with my creations and have even more fun.I didn't care if they were brand new or not.

But as always the best toys were the ones that I asked for and usually got from my grandparents. My parents were more focused on socks and educational toys, but my grandparents would buy me things like the super big set of Lego! I used to have a huge Lego collection from the original space set with its grey and blue pieces, to the different emergency vehicle sets like police and firemen, and even lots of general Lego pieces. When I was making something, I didn't care what blocks I used as long as they helped me put my creation together.

When someone mentions dolls, boys look the other way or make fun of Barbies. But action figures like Transformers or G.I.Joe are dolls too. Dolls are great because you can use them to act out anything you want. It doesn't matter what the doll is it could be a teddy bear and still be crawling along a trench in a war, or swinging down a zip-line to save a damsel in distress.

I'm not sure if you consider bicycles toys, but in my book they are. How many times have you seen children on bicycles that were pretending to be something else? To them the bicycle is a rocket ship, or a police car, or a cowboy's horse.

The common thread in all these toys, from the cardboard box to Lego blocks to G.I.Joe to a bicycle, is that they all encourage children to use their imagination. If you have a good imagination, anything can be a toy, and it will entertain you for hours on end. So if you hear children say they are bored, help them find the magic of a cardboard box. Chances are you will find some of your old magic too!

Learn more about this author, David B Hitchcock.
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