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Rating: 
Summary: Kitahara Grabbag is Visual Feast
Review: As an introduction to Teruhisa Kitahara's magnificent toy collection, this book is lavish and enchanting. The large-sized, hardback coffee table book edition consists almost entirely of gorgeous, color photographs of toys from the past, which are visually interesting and require little comment. What comment there is, however, is sometimes wrong. That's not a big downside, because toy hobbyists don't read Kitahara so much to learn about their hobby, as to gaze at the wonderful treasures in his collection.This book is compiled from three previous Kitahara books covering, respectively, "dolls, clowns and animals"; "planes, trains, boats and cars";" and "robots, spaceships and monsters." Someone interested in one of those categories isn't necessarily interested in all three. I, for one, find myself mostly drawn to the third category of robots and spaceships. Other visually lavish and not-too expensive books in that category include "Vintage Toys: Robots and Space Toys" by Bunte, Hallman and Mueller. "Marx Toys: Robots, Space, Comic, Disney and TV Characters" by Maxine Pinksy includes lots of old robots because many of them were imported through Marx or its subsidiaries. "Baby Boomer Toys and Collectibles" by Carol Turpen is also fascinating in this regard. One recent book I very much like is "Space Toys of the '60s," by James Gillam, which concentrates exclusively on three toy lines: Zeroid robots from Ideal, Mattel's Major Matt Mason, and Colorforms' Outer Space Men. Along with many color and black and white photos, this inexpensive oversize paperback provides a fascinating history and personal discussion of these toy lines. "Toys of the 'Sixties" by Bill Bruegman is slighty harder to find, but this large paperback by the editor of "Toy Scouts" is filled with fascinating behind-the-scenes stories from the history of toys, and chock-full of black and white drawings and pictures. Finally, "Boy's Toys of the Fifties and Sixties" and its companion volume, "Girl's Toys..." is a fascinating collection of actual pages from the Sears Christmas Wishbooks from 1950-1969 (something everyone wishes they had kept). Those enchanted by the visual feast of Kitahara's book might want to peruse further in some of these other inexpensive volumes.
Rating: 
Summary: a visual plethora of toys from then to now
Review: This a wonderful book if you love to look at the history of toys. the photos are wonderful and colorful. I am a graphic design student and my class bought this for our teacher who is always looking for photo of toys resource book. It has it all and its fun to look at.
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