These cuddly, connected companions could disrupt everything from make-believe to bedtime stories. No wonder some lawmakers ...

My special skills included driving a small car filled with helium balloons, memorising children’s names – and tolerating parents’ behaviour Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email From the age of ...

As the site’s resident toy expert — I’m the writer behind the Strategist’s “Toy Store” and gifts for every age — I get an early look at the latest and greatest new toys. In this toy-focused edition of ...

A newer, flashier toy posing a threat to the established order has been a running theme of the “Toy Story” franchise from the very beginning. But the peril has never been greater for the former ...

When Jennifer McDonald saw a photo of Mattel’s first-ever autistic Barbie doll, she marveled at how relatable the representation was. “It looked like an iPad of some sort that she was holding,” ...

Mattel is releasing its first Barbie doll designed to represent an autistic individual, reflecting a growing commitment to inclusive and representative play. Their press release announced that the new ...

Senator Steve Padilla (D-CA) introduced a bill on Monday that would place a four-year ban on the sale and manufacture of toys with AI chatbot capabilities for kids under 18. The goal is to give safety ...

As adults, we have the distance and wherewithal to look back at the media we consumed when we were young and reflect on how it might have traumatized us. Whether it was the death of an animated ...

An error has occurred. Please try again. With a The Portland Press Herald subscription, you can gift 5 articles each month. It looks like you do not have any active ...

EXCLUSIVE: BarbieLand, in all its brightly-colored delight, is coming to London. We hear Secret Cinema and TodayTix, in collaboration with Barbie owner Mattel and Warner Bros, are set to launch an ...

Ruth Handler, who co-founded Mattel with her husband, Elliot Handler, and Harold Matson in 1945, noticed her daughter, Barbara, playing with paper dolls and dreaming about what kind of woman she would ...