by Caroline St Clare

Created on: July 20, 2011   Last Updated: July 21, 2011

Sylvanian Families, also known as Calico Critters, are a collection of miniature toys which are designed to appeal to young girls between the ages of four and ten. These families are both fascinating and amusing, but can drive parents to distraction with their invasion of the home. However, they are adorably cute with their exquisitely designed clothes and accessories that you can't help but admire. And even better, they keep children amused for hours on end.

Sylvanian Families consist of a burgeoning range of characters featuring mice, beavers, bears and hedgehogs, and more recently cats and dogs, sheep, penguins, monkeys and meerkats. The families feature traditional family life where each set of animals has a mother, father, children and grandparents. There are numerous miniature accessories to collect which range from houses and furniture to toys, clothes, cars, bicycles and special kits such as an ice cream stall, a donut stall and a shop.

In many ways, Sylvanian families are the ideal toy for little girls. There is so much to entertain them. Sylvanian Families toys and accessories are exquisitely designed in minute detail and they’re perfectly sized for small hands to play with. Girls often love playing house and the Sylvanian collection includes houses, cottages and a manor house to name a few. And they're all waiting to be accessorized with tiny bathrooms, living rooms, bedrooms and kitchen sets, not to mention a host of outdoor activities. Children can create endless stories for the characters in the world of Sylvanian Families.

They also make a fantastic present. Anyone who's stuck for something to buy a little girl can feel confident that a new addition to their Sylvanian Family collection will be very well received. With new characters and accessories frequently appearing in stores, there will always be another Sylvanian character or accessory to buy.

While children have a wonderful time playing with their Sylvanian toys, they can be a source of frustration for parents, namely the fact that they end up scattered around the home, where they'll find their way into every nook and cranny. They’re so tiny that many of them inevitably end up inside the vacuum cleaner. For example, a bowl of fruit contains an orange which is the size of a lentil! And if you step on them, their fragility means they’ll snap like twigs.

They're not particularly cheap either. These figures cost anything from £5/$8 for a single figure up to £70/$112

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