A Letter From the Publisher

By Richard B. Thomas

In this holiday season, TIME takes a look at the myths and legends of childhood that have managed to survive even into this electronic age. We examine the ways in which those cartoon dolls He-Man and She-Ra are descended from Hansel and Gretel, and how the dragons and tin soldiers of old have evolved into today's plastic dinosaurs and G.I. Joes. But it is not only the myths that endure: often, traces of childhood still lurk beneath the tough hide of adults. This holds true, we found last week, even when those grownups work for TIME. Editors, writers and reporter-researchers often found it necessary to interrupt their tasks to poke through the mountain of dolls, blocks and robots that was amassed for the story in an empty office on our 26th floor.

"My favorite was a marble-moving machine," says Stefan Kanfer, who wrote the main story. Kanfer, senior editor of the Books section, long ago decorated his office with a stuffed lion, a windup dragon and games purchased from sidewalk vendors. He admits that toys are on his mind a lot, so much so, he confesses, "that I began thinking about this story last April. I was told, however, that it had to wait for Christmas."

Senior Editor Jose Ferrer, who edited the toys stories, claims he was too busy to play, but he acknowledges that he would like to try a newfangled gun called Lazer Tag: "I was also intrigued by one toy, Spacewarp, which looks like a high-toned version of a marble game I used to love." When he was a boy, recalls Ferrer, toys were less exotic. He and his brother constructed raceways from blocks for marbles to slide down, and would play with them for hours, until their sister toddled in and knocked everything over.

In the midst of the distractions (not to mention the quest for batteries), TIME relied on a panel of five-year-old experts: Brian Alexander advised his father, Economy & Business Senior Editor Charles Alexander, who, in turn, helped the writers with the business aspects of toys; Sam Cocks, whose dad Contributor Jay Cocks reviewed the more popular toys; and Julian Graham, whose mother Megan Rutherford helped research the stories. Brian tested the robots, while Julian and Sam went into the field (an F.A.O. Schwarz toy store in New York City), where they particularly approved of the trains and educational computers. Says Jay Cocks: "I am basically a five-year-old who put the story together with consultation from the others, using my somewhat larger vocabulary."