My 3 girls and I had the opportunity to try out a great app this week, The Big Toy Book. This app, that can be downloaded for free from iTunes, is a catalog of 200 of today’s top toys. My girls were able to browse the pages of the catalog and when they saw something they liked, they circled it with their finger and it was added to their wish lists (that can be emailed or shared via Facebook.)
Since October, we have been keeping a wish list of things that the girls want for Christmas. And the list, which resides on the refrigerator, gets lost sometimes, it’s wrinkled and grimy, and it’s barely legible as the little ones can not really spell the names of the toys they want.
So after the kids used the app, I emailed their wish lists to my inbox. Each wish list contained very detailed product descriptions, images, a list of retailers that sold the toys, and prices. Since the wish list had so many images, it was a very large file. So in future versions, I would like the option of having the list without the images.
Since The Big Toy Book only has a limited selection of toys (about 200), I asked the creator, Laurie Schacht, how they selected the toys for their catalog. She said many of the toys came from the holiday gift guide on her site, TheToyInsider.com. For the last six years, the Toy Insider along with their panel of experts has been providing a holiday gift guide of the hottest and best toys for kids. Laurie also told me they plan to add more toys to catalog with later versions and she doesn’t want the app to only be used as a holiday wish list. She also wants it “to be for birthdays, spring and summer, back to school, etc.”
My kids and I were very pleased with The Big Toy Book app, which is available for iPhones and the iPad. I think it is actually a brilliant idea and makes it easier for me to find out what my kids want ( during the holidays or birthday time.) And my kids absolutely loved using the app.
BMWK Family – Do you keep a wishlist with your kids? Please tryout The Big Toy Book and let us know what you think.
Marina says
pretty cool app. So far, we have been asking kids to tell us one toy they want. So, my 5 year daughter is asking for a red car. She even showed it to us in a magazine – a red Porsche. I might have to stop there and not let her come up with the whole list 🙂
Ronnie Harris Tyler says
@Marina – I guess your daughter said..if I only can have one gift…then it better be a good one… :-). We told our kids that they would only get 3 gifts…but they love making wish lists from the toy ads. So you can imagine that when I showed them this app..they went bonkers. They loved looking at all of the toys in the catalog and being able to add the toys to their wish list.
Aschmidt517 says
I should have looked at this sooner. My two year old keeps the paper catalog and carries them around the house to read.
Lamar says
I was thinking the same thing. Our girls have paper catalogs that they’ve beat up by looking through them so much circling and re-circling things over and over again. LOL