Stockings hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that the Super Mario Bros. soon will be there? Well, why not? The best video games make great gifts for kids — as do books, audiocassettes, videos, and games. Here are Entertainment Weekly's gift-giving selections for kids of all ages.
Books
When you give a child a book, you want to be like the good fairy at the christening — to cast a spell of enchantment, to dazzle the child into falling in love with reading. These are chosen for surefire dazzle power:
The Peter Rabbit Presentation Box
Beatrix Potter
A treasure trove neatly stowed in a little
trunk with a handle: 11 hand-size books with delectable
illustrations, including Appley Dappley Nursery Rhymes and The Tale
of Johnny Town-Mouse.
Baby's World
Photos by Stephen Shott
is a big, bold hardcover catalog of babies, their toys, clothes,
pastimes, and familiar objects, photographed in brilliant colors on
sturdy white pages.
The Kid From Tomkinsville
John R. Tunis
Thrill the young baseball fan by
making a gift package of this and Tunis' three other exciting
baseball novels from the 1940s. Tunis brought civilized values and a
sportswriter's eye for action to these novels, and no one has ever
done it better.
The Very Quiet Cricket
Eric Carle
Favorite picture-book artist Carle tells the endearing story of a
cricket who learns to chirp when he falls in love. The
impressionistic pictures are lovely, and the sound effect — a cricket
song that plays when you turn the last page — is enchanting.
Granny Will Your Dog Bite and Other Mountain Rhymes
Gerald
Milnes
Rollicking rhymes from Appalachia swing with rhythm and boisterous
humor. This is the real thing — wild and alive, gorgeously illustrated,
and with a terrific cassette on which the rhymes are sung with banjo,
fiddle, and dulcimer.
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