
Toy Stories: Children around the world with their most prized possessions - bookofjoe
http://www.gabrielegalimberti.com/toy-stories/
======
trykondev
This is a beautiful project. I still remember the night before a "show and
tell" event at my school when I was eight years old. I laid out all my toys on
my bed and tried to choose which one to bring to school the next day. I felt
such excitement at the prospect of telling my friends all about the games I
played with them.

I remember having such love for my toys and when I think of them I can still
feel the joy they brought me. I admit that scrolling through these pictures
today has me feeling pretty emotional.

~~~
op00to
I have a kid, and I am broken on a daily basis as I see him grow to love,
build relationships with, and then eventually outgrow cherished toys.

My own childhood sucked, and one of the constants I had in my life were my car
toys. They were thrown away, out of spite. This article also hit me in a few
different emotional places.

~~~
foobarqwertz
I hope and guess that one constant in your kid's life is you. And I hope
his/her childhood doesn't resemble yours. Toys accompany you through
childhood, parents through life. I lost the latter too early.

~~~
op00to
I’m happy mine are dead. They were horrible.

~~~
foobarqwertz
While I had not horrible yet very absent parents I believe in the next
generation. There is room to makes better for your own. It usually is
difficult but nontheless a good purpose in life.

------
Fnoord
This reminded me of an older series of "Daily Bread: What Kids Eat Around the
World". I had to look it up and submitted it here [1]

Also, the author has more series on her website [2]. One is called "The
Heavens" about tax havens. One is called "Fathers" it is about fathers (as a
father myself, I enjoyed it). There's one about "couchsurfers" (does not
interest me, YMMV) and there's the one already linked.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20903532](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20903532)

[2] [https://www.gabrielegalimberti.com](https://www.gabrielegalimberti.com)

~~~
dominicr
Also similar to "Where Children Sleep", which is exactly that:
[http://jamesmollison.com/books/where-children-
sleep/](http://jamesmollison.com/books/where-children-sleep/)

------
frankbreetz
It's surprising how non unique the toys. The Switzerland boy had a Disney
"cars" car, a batmobile, and a Spider-Man costume. The two girls from
zanizabar had a skelator. The boy from Australia had Brio trains and Thomas
the tank engine. I see barely any toys that are uniquely native to their home
country. I don't know if this is good or bad, but globalization is real.

~~~
zaat
This is only partially true - you focused on the global and universal and
missed the more local. For example, two kids have baseball bats, but except
for America and Japan most kids in the world won't have bats, many haven't
even seen one ever. The kid from Alaska with his snow sleds and the Italian
girl with the cows are two prime examples of a local, native culture childhood
style.

~~~
frankbreetz
Cows are everywhere, and sleds are everywhere where there is lots of snow.
Cows are not local or native to Italy, if anything it shows there is a larger
divide between urban and rural areas then what country you live in.

To me it's interesting that kids are not only playing with similar toys, but
the exact same brand of toy. Of course there are some differences, but
compared to 50 years ago childhood around the world is starting to look the
same.

------
tzs
The first kid, with the Spider-Man bedspread, 11 dinosaurs on the floor, and
five dragons on the wall baffles me.

The dragons are two Terrible Terrors, a Deadly Nadder, a Gronkle, and a
Monstrous Nightmare. How can you put up pictures of assorted dragons and not
include a Night Fury?

------
jphoward
I'm surprised and pleased about how similar the toys are to those from when I
was little. Lots of train sets and cars.

I suspected to see a series of iPads and games consoles. I flicked through 20
or so and barely a battery-powered toy in sight, never mind a computer.

I don't know why it should make me happy though... maybe I'm worried modern
children's lives are too complicated and just idolise my own, without any
evidence for that. Getting old, I suppose.

~~~
imesh
Well I know this is anecdotal, and I can't say how widespread this behavior
would be, but I'm certain my wife wouldn't let my 5 year old boy put his iPad
on display out of embarrassment.

~~~
woodpanel
`out of embarrassment` - I'm getting shushed when I yell out loud for my boy
to come in to watch some youtube. Not because she thinks putting him in front
of apple tv is bad parenting, but because the neighbors shouldn't hear it.

What I like is when other parents open up about their experiences. There seems
to be a big chasm between official and de-facto parenting.

When pressed, at least, the grandparents that just gave us the look because
our three year old can pinch-swipe open up how they did the same with us back
then, just with older tech.

------
rayiner
This is heartwarming. The amazing thing about children is that they’re happy
to just be there. If you go see a bunch of kids in a village in Bangladesh,
they’re as happy as kids anywhere.

------
sandworm101
No iphones?

These kids are a little young, but with a sample size like this I'd expect at
least a couple to pose with electronics. When I was that age there were no
cellphones, but I did have some toys with batteries. The only electronic
"toys" I see in this are musical instruments. Baseball bats in Japan? I think
this is less what the kids value and what the adults _dream_ that their kids
value. It's nostalgia.

~~~
morsch
> Baseball bats in Japan?

Well, yeah. _The Nippon Professional Baseball league is Japan 's largest
professional sports competition in terms of television ratings and
spectators._
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport_in_Japan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport_in_Japan))

Also, I thought this was pretty funny:
[https://imgur.com/a/K5hktiY](https://imgur.com/a/K5hktiY)

------
reaperducer
Only one child had electronics. Perhaps things aren't so bad after all.

(I don't know which country he was from. The captions didn't work for me on
iOS.)

~~~
416chad
Age 4. Buena Vista, Colombia.

------
wintersFright
slingshot boy is cool.

the young boys with the array of plastic guns is a bit disturbing*

* to a non north american at least

~~~
coleifer
Ehh sometimes kids like guns. My aunt was telling me how she wasn't going to
let her kids have toy guns or watch violent shows. One morning she made toast,
and my cousin had bitten his toast into the shape of a gun. He's now a writer
for wacky kids shows.

~~~
Fnoord
IMO the question is _why_ do children like guns?

~~~
analognoise
Because if you didn't have a "pick up the spear and defend the tribe"
attitude, your group was less likely to make it.

Guns, swords, chase, hunt are all major staples of boy play. It's primal,
gendered, cross cultural and immediately obvious.

~~~
runamok
You're not wrong but this is a pretty heavy "nature" argument vs. "nurture".

No kid is being raised in isolation of their culture. I'd assume there would
be strong correlation to being exposed to movies and TV with people using guns
to you gun purchases/affinity.

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herostratus101
This really brought into sharp focus how underdeveloped most of Africa is.

~~~
bsanr2
Really? There were a couple who looked like their families were dealing with
poverty, but most seemed to be happy, healthy, living in comfortable
surroundings and with a handful of nice toys. What I didn't see was excess.

Now what surprised me was the Alaskan kid whose toys are apparently sleds and,
um, a hanging rope?

~~~
jolmg
Maybe the rope is to stay in place while getting on the sled.

------
ggm
Several museums of egyptology and ancient cultures have significant examples
of toys from times in the deep past, and the continuity with modern day toys
is remarkably clear. There have always been toys which allow children to play
at real life, and reflect the everyday nature of real life.

A play kitchen has always been a part of human culture, since kitchens exist.

Old forms of huggable relatable toys also exist. Games of chance, ball-games,
balancing games, threading games, toy birds, toy animals, toy weapons...

------
redleggedfrog
I would love to see pictures of the same kids 20 years later with their
favorite adult toys. I wonder how many of them would still have similar
interests.

------
redleggedfrog
The Utah girl and the Tokyo boy seem like they'd make good playmates. All
'bout hittin' those balls.

------
eitland
This is a real art project!

Some day I should sit down and publish my art project: "abandoned toys".

(Since I got my first camera phone around 2005 I have been taking images of
toys that were abandoned on playgrounds etc.)

------
hanoz
Delightful. And refreshingly realistic - I was bracing myself for a slew of
girls with cars and boys with tea sets.

~~~
benj111
My 3 year old boy will happily push his pram and doll around, and has a tea
set, vacuum and oven.

He also has a train set, likes playing 'diy', etc, etc.

I was slightly surprised there weren't any boxes or other random none toys in
these images.

From my own personal observations, its more a difference of how kids play, not
what they play with. My sons doll isnt mothered, the vacuum is 'plugged in'
and 'repaired' more often than its used for vacuuming.

~~~
bookofjoe
My 3-year-old grandson, visiting last weekend, ignored the Tinker Toy set I
bought for him in favor of playing with two battery-powered mice my cat likes.

------
Yuval_Halevi
This is so beautiful

Would like to see more projects like this that make you appreciate what you
have

