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Building for Girls

While talking to a friend the other night, we were discussing her daughter's upcoming birthday, and the difficulty of getting gifts for a child when their birthday falls so soon after Christmas. Knowing that I spend a great deal of time looking at toys and following toy trends, she came to me looking for some advice. I asked her what her daughter had under the tree this year, and it was as traditional as it gets; dolls, a play kitchen, princess clothes and some of her favorite Disney movies on blu-ray. It struck me that something was missing, and for lack of a better description, I will call it "the boy toys".

When I was a child, my parents were not big on the gender of toys. If I wanted a doll, I was given a doll, if I wanted an action figure, no problem. When they bought me LEGO sets, they were the standard primary colors, not the pretty pastels that were meant for girls.

I suggested that my friend get her daughter something that they can build together, old school Lincoln Logs, a LEGO set, or perhaps a model kit. The idea of a model kit intrigued her, but she wasn't sure if her daughter would be interested in building a car or plane.

This is where the fun begins, when you get to introduce someone to the vast and varied world of modeling. The options are almost endless, with there being everything from the traditional cars and planes, to the worlds of science fiction like Star Trek, to even human anatomy and structure. Although my friend is a teacher, she had never thought of the educational building of the human ear in class as model building. It surprised her to think that she has actually been a model builder for the past five years with her students.

With a quick internet search, she settled on two kits for her daughter's birthday, a detailed dog skeleton that snaps together; great for a beginner. The second is a 1/25 Dodge Viper from Revell, which she thinks her daughter will like because it looks a little like a car Barbie would drive.

If it gets her building, I will be happy to see a Viper in Barbie pink.


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