ToyTalk: Toy news, reviews and features

Waybuloo fans get crafty

by Eleanor de Bruin
Children aged three upwards love colouring, stickers and hit CBeebies show Waybuloo. That’s why Golden Bear has cleverly combined all these elements in their Waybuloo Colour and Sticker Fun set.

Priced around £5.99, the set includes eight sheets of paper decorated with the cute characters and their favourite accessories, plus beautiful scenery from the land of Nara, and six pencils to transform them from black and white to a riot of colour. A sticker sheet adds to the decorating fun.

For even more creative tots, the Waybuloo 3D Piping Picture Build contains all the elements preschoolers need to create a 3D picture of their favourite Pipling.

The kit contains backing card, character card, pod card and butterfly card, with five pens to decorate the finished picture, and is priced around £6.99.

Airfix trio flies high

by David Smith
Three World War II planes are ready to be reconstructed in 1:72 scale, with Airfix releasing the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver, the Bell P-39Q Airacobra and the Ilyushin Sturmovik.

The Helldiver was tested and rejected by the Royal Navy but saw service with the US Navy (they obviously weren’t as picky). The skill level 2 set has 76 parts and is priced around £5.99.

The Airacobra, instantly recognisable thanks to having its engine behind the cockpit, saw action with both the US Army Air Corps and the Soviet Union’s Air Force. A skill level 1 set, with 37 parts, it is priced around £4.99.

Finally, the Ilyushin Sturmovik is another skill level 2 model with 59 parts, priced around £5.99. This Russian plane excelled at attacking ground targets but had a woeful record in air-to-air combat and was a favourite target of German fighter aces.

Have you got The Krypton Factor?

by Eleanor de Bruin
New from John Adams & Toy Brokers is an interactive board game based on popular game show, The Krypton Factor.

The game show first aired in 1977, and has stayed exciting throughout the years, with its 2009 revival seeing 3.5 million viewers tune in each week. The game comes with a DVD and sticks closely to the format of the fun-filled show.

Priced around £19.99, family and friends aged eight and over can challenge each other to compete at two different skill levels across the five different areas of play – Mental Agility, Observation, Physical Ability, Intelligence and General Knowledge.

The DVD comes in handy for the Observation round, where clips from some of ITV’s most popular shows, such as Emmerdale, Hell’s Kitchen and Coronation Street, are used for players to watch and then answer questions about afterwards.

Britains goes Dutch

by David Smith
Combine harvesters are massive beasts and even when shrunk down to 1:32 scale they are still pretty substantial, so the New Holland CX8090 Combine Harvester, the latest addition to the Britains range from Learning Curve, is a sizeable proposition.

Proudly bearing the company’s famous yellow livery, the CX8090 is priced around £34.99 and is joined by the New Holland BB9080 Big Square Baler, which takes the crops harvested by the CX8090 and packs them into big oblong bales (why isn’t it called a Big Oblong Baler?)

Three green bales are included to increase the options for role-play fun and the Big Square Baler is priced around £19.99.

Wanted on voyage

by David Smith
Paddington Bear would be lost without his suitcase, so the latest release from Rainbow Designs intends to make sure he always has it handy – in fact, he can fit inside it.

The Mini Paddington in Tin Suitcase comes in two varieties. You can opt for a patriotic Union Jack case, or the more traditional version, which is plastered with stickers from Paddington’s voyage from Peru to London (Sydney? Rome? Berlin? It looks like he took the scenic route.) Each Mini Paddington is priced around £4.99.

If you know someone who’d like to have a little Paddington with them at all times, the new Classic Paddington Keychain, priced around £4.99, could be just the ticket.

You can also pick up a new version of the well-travelled bear from the My First Paddington range, for younger fans.

My First Small Paddington is 11cm high and is priced around £6.99.

Cuddle up and colour

by Eleanor de Bruin
Creative tots from age three upwards can sit back, relax on a comfortable cushion and enjoy a bit of artwork with their favourite Waybuloo character.

The Waybuloo Craft Cushion from Golden Bear is a round, pretty cushion featuring either De Li the cat or Lau Lau the rabbit, the two loveable girl characters from the hit CBeebies show.

The clever cushion opens up and inside is everything a budding young artist could possibly need, including 20 bright crayons, four felt-tip pens, a pencil, rubber and sharpener and of course a pad of paper to set down all their works of art.

The Waybuloo Craft Cushion is priced around £14.99.

Make a wish

by Eleanor de Bruin
If little girls of age three and upwards could have three wishes granted, what would they be? Perhaps they would wish for a magical pink fairy castle, surrounded by a lush green walled garden and with a working drawbridge to keep them safe.

Or how about a classic princess tower complete with a balcony to swoon on and a rope ladder for the handsome prince to climb up? What about a mystical dragon dungeon, and a stable to keep their pet unicorn in?

The Three Wishes Castle from Le Toy Van fulfils all those aspirations. Although children won’t be able to actually live in the 50cm high castle, complete with all the details as described above, they can play at make-believe to their hearts’ content, with the figures which are sold separately.

The castle is priced around £69.99.

Warm reception

by David Smith
When it’s time for bed, children love to have a comforting toy to hand, and the new In the Night Garden hot water bottle covers from Golden Bear look just the job.

Available as Igglepiggle (who has his own blanket to help him get to sleep) or Upsy Daisy, each can be used as a soft cover for a hot water bottle, or as a pyjama case – or simply as cuddly toys in their own right.

For ages three and up, the hot water bottle covers are priced around £19.99 each.

All day long

by Eleanor de Bruin
Round and Round is another brightly-coloured board game from Orchard Toys designed to help children aged three to six have lots of fun while learning simple skills.

Using miniature 3D busses, two to four players can zoom around the beautifully-illustrated board, collecting various items from the traditional nursery rhyme.

Priced around £15, the game encourages little ones to develop basic literacy and maths skills, while helping them brush up on their social skills as they have lots of fun and interact with the other players.

Tickled pink (and red and green and blue and…)

by David Smith
Elmer, the colourful patchwork elephant, is a familiar character to countless children, but if your little ones reckon they could do a better job of colouring him in than Elmer’s creator, David McKee, then the new Colour Me Elmer might be impossible to resist.

Rainbow Designs’ new version of Elmer looks more like a crossword puzzle when you get him out of the box. At 28cm in height he is entirely covered in a black and white grid.

Take out the included pens, however, and you’ll soon put some colour back into his cheeks. And his trunk. And his legs.

Best of all, the pens use washable ink, so you can try out different colour schemes and, after a quick visit to the washing machine, start all over again.

The Colour Me Elmer is priced around £19.99.