Battle of the Planets

Battle of the Planets, Vol. 1
Battle of the Planets, Vol. 1
Price: Check on Amazon

Imagine a Star Trek plot with Power Rangers characters, scored by a hodge-podge of John Williams sound-alikes and late ’60s sounds influenced by bands such as Procol Harum, and voiced by Casey Kasem?

The answer is Battle of the Planets

My son asked me what were my favorite shows when I was his age. There were so few options compared to now, but I recalled Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Crusader Cat and Minute Mouse, Zoom, 321 Contact, Bugs Bunny and the other Looney Tunes shows, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Kroft Superstars (Land of the Lost and the other ones), The Banana Splits, The New Zoo Revue.

When I was older I loved Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, The Greatest American Hero, the A-Team.

But the show I was absolutely obsessed with when I was his age was “Battle of the Planets”. I even wrote and drew what would now be called fan fiction in my own comic book version of the show that I called “Battle of the Stars”.

The show had Japanese animation and was a mishmash of Star Wars, Star Trek, and Japanese shows such as Power Rangers and Voltron.

A drawback to the show is the odd addition of the robot making oddly romantic comments about the one girl character. I think they go over the heads of my kids, but it’s jarring.

The plots and themes are complex, as though originally written for a different show and then shoehorned into a kids show. Or maybe the bar was higher for kids in the 70s.

DVDs are hard to find. But they’re all on YouTube.

Wikipedia has a lot of information (of course they do!)

Japanese Eraser Animals

I don’t know whether this is the Next Big Thing, but my kids love these little things. They come in animal shapes, vehicles, pastries, etc.

They are made of eraser rubber (but don’t actually fit on a pencil) and are each composed of multiple pieces, so each creature is a small, simple 3D puzzle.

The creatures are very cute and something about the colors and the texture of the eraser rubber makes them seem almost like cartoons somehow made real.

They make good party favors or the sort of thing you might include with valentine cards for classmates, or as part of a grab bag.

You can get a big set from Amazon or a pack of 8 or so from some dollar stores. There are some Japanese “$1.50” stores in California that carry them, too.

Sandra Boynton

Sandra Boynton has had children’s books in print for the past 40+ years, ever since publishing “Hippos Go Berserk” in 1977. Her distinctive and very recognizable illustration style may be more familiar from her many, many calendars, coffee mugs, and cards. By her own estimate, she has drawn between 4,000 and 6,000 greeting cards! Her most famous is probably the birthday card that reads, “Hippo Birdie Two Ewes”

We have several of her 60+ children’s board books and they are an easy and popular gift to give and receive. The drawing style is fun and whimsical and the “stories”, as simple as they are, are great for read-along time. Our kids essentially memorize entire books and then can read along with us.

Her most popular books include “Moo, Baa, La La La!”, “The Going to Bed Book”, “Barnyard Dance”, “A to Z”, “Blue Hat, Green Hat”, and “Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs!” A complete list of her books is on her Wikipedia page

She also has several children’s music albums, including:
“Rhinoceros Tap” (1996)
“Philadelphia Chickens” (2002)
“Dog Train” (2005)
“Blue Moo” (2007)
“Boléro Completely Unraveled” (2010)
“Frog Trouble” (2013)
“Hog Wild” (2017)

Our kids love “Philadelphia Chickens” in particular.

More information about her books at sandraboynton.com

Kratts’ Creatures – Zoboomafoo – Wild Kratts

It all started when brothers Martin and Chris Kratt grew up in New Jersey, went camping, and took some pictures of local wildlife. This blossomed into lifelong love of nature and specifically of documenting it and sharing their knowledge and enthusiasm.

Their first show together was Kratts’ Creatures in 1996. They evolved the concept a bit and ran Zoboomafoo in 1999, Be the Creature in 2003, and Creature Adventures in 2008. They have been making the current incarnation, Wild Kratts since 2011. This more recent version has much more animation, which my kids find appealing. (They aren’t so interested in long-form nature documentaries with nothing but video clips of animals)

The older content, such as the Zoboomafoo series, has aged well (although the brothers themselves are visibly much younger) and I’ve found used DVDs for very cheap. (The hard part about DVDs these days is finding a working player).

There are also several free onlne spinoff games on PBS Kids Games. Monkey Mayhem is my kids’ favorite.

There are also lots of books based on Wild Kratts and even action figures, and even also a live stage show!

The Kratt Brothers’ enthusiasm is infectious and I find myself jealous that these guys can travel the world, making a living from doing what they love.

The videos and everything they do is wholesome, entertaining, and educational. It’s the kind of thing I have no hesitation of letting my kids watch during their allocated screen time.

There are free videos, games, and other activities on the Wild Kratts website at PBS kids dot org.
(The games are all done in HTML5 so they work on all types of computer, iPad, etc. with no need for the now-deprecated Flash plugin.)

200-VS Attack – Bump ‘n Eject RC Battle Bumper Cars

This was a gift for the birthday boy at a party we attended and we got a chance to play with it. It was a lot of fun.

Remote control cars have been around a while (Tesla built an RC boat in the late 1800s!) and whenever I’ve played with them, my instinct is to crash into things. I know not everyone does that (I’ve seen grown men spend hours driving RC cars in circles in empty parking lots) but I think most kids do. So it seems obvious that there should be an RC car that allows, even encourages kids to crash into each other.

The trick is how to record a hit. When kids are play-swordfighting, it’s hard to know if you got a hit. The other kid can just say you missed. I’ve seen kids tape markers to the ends of yardsticks, and a hit is visibly displayed, but that gets messy. But with cars, there has not yest been a good way to know whether your strike made contact until now. On both sides of the cars are sensors, that when hit popup the little figure driving the car. Very simple and very obvious. The sensors on these are the right sensitivity, neither too sensitive nor not enough.

We had lots of fun with these, kids and adults.

The Amazon page has this listed under lots of different names. Looks like resellers are able to brand them however they like. The labels on the cars themselves read “200-VS Attack”

Pete the Cat

I first heard of Pete the Cat in 2008 or so. A local bookstore had a huge poster of the cat and books signed by the author. I did not understand the appeal and thought the writing and illustration was so crude and simple that anyone could do it. It made me think that I could write a children’s book if this thing could get published.

But I haven’t written a children’s book and not only did “I Love My White Shoes” get published, there are now 40+ titles in the Pete the Cat series. And regardless of my initial impressions, kids love it. They love the illustration style and the attitude of the main character, Pete, and they love the repetitive say-along style of the writing.

We have several of the books and frequently check others out of the library.

Pete the cat is now an icon with his own musical and his own TV show on Amazon Prime.

More about the series and the author and illustrator

Because You Are My Baby

Because You Are My Baby -45%
Because You Are My Baby
Price: $9.32
Was: $16.95

This is a book that I thought would get ignored on the shelf, but the kids ask for it at bedtime every now and then.

I had thought the sentiment was too sappy, especially for the older ones, but I think there are two reasons they like it:

• The illustrations (Marcellus Hall) are a lot of fun, with lots of details to look at, and they help convey a sense of adventure: deep-sea diving, space travel, etc.

• When the kids have a frustrating day at school or with friends, or feel jealous of a sibling, they like a cuddle and a story that reminds them that they are loved, even though they wouldn’t admit it.

This is a good, solid bedtime book.

B. Fish N’ Splish

B. Fish N' Splish (Bath Boat) -27%
B. Fish N' Splish (Bath Boat)
Price: $21.99
Was: $29.99

Of all the toys in our house, this one has probably been played with the most (apart from legos). We got it as a gift for our oldest’s first birthday and it has been an essential part of the tub toy collection ever since.

It’s a well-designed toy with all the features that kids want:
• Cups to pour water
• Cups with holes
• Little captain figure
• Floating boat
• Fishing rod with fish
• Mirror
• Comb and brush

The fishing rod itself is an essential toy for us that has spent as much time outside the bathroom as in it.

The boat even has an elastic band that allows you to wind up the paddle-wheel in the back, which then actually powers the boat forward.

All the pieces fit inside the boat so you can keep things tidy when not in use.

And the components are designed with no deep crevices so there is no place for mold to hide, which has been an issue with some other bath toys we’ve had.

Highly recommended if you need a gift for a 1- or 2-year old

Disney Pixar Storybook Collection

This is a collection of abbreviated versions of all the Pixar movies in book form.

It has been published a few times, each time with a few more movies added. We have the third edition of this book from 2016 which includes:

  • A Bug’s Life
  • Brave
  • Cars
  • Cars 2
  • Finding Nemo
  • Finding Dory
  • The Good Dinosaur
  • The Incredibles
  • Inside Out
  • Monsters, Inc.
  • Monsters University
  • Ratatouille
  • Toy Story
  • Toy Story 2
  • Toy Story 3
  • Up
  • Wall-E

The kids don’t need to be familiar with the movies to enjoy the stories. In fact, we had never heard of some of them (e.g. the dinosaur one, which was kind of a weird story). The plots are highly abridged in order to fit into ~10 pages so the stories as they are retold may not even be all that familiar anyway. And some movies that were duds in my opinion (e.g. Cars 2, Monsters University) actually work better as books than films. The plots are streamlined, with extraneous side-plots removed, leaving only the central character arcs and lessons about honesty or friendship or whatever.

It’s a hefty book with many hours of story time inside. A typical bedtime for us will be each kid gets to pick one of the stories, which ends up being half an hour or so in total. The book is almost like having 17 little golden books in one massive tome.

The illustrations are fun. They are not simply stills from the movies but have been redrawn to better evoke key scenes from the stories.

Minecraft: The Island

We have some Minecraft-obsessed people in our house and when visiting the library we always look for Minecraft-themed books for design ideas. We picked up “The Island” not knowing anything about it and the kids lost interest when they saw that there were no illustrations.

But I read the first chapter at bedtime and they were hooked. They couldn’t get enough and I ended up reading two or even three chapters per night until we had finished it. For that one week we were all obsessed.

The story is a first-person narrative of a character in Minecraft, as though their consciousness suddenly dropped out of the sky. The narrator has to figure out how to survive in the world, creating shelter, acquiring resources, defending against monsters – all the things that a player has to do in the game. So there is a Robinson Crusoe-aspect to the story, combined with details specific to the game.

The story is by Max Brooks, who is probably best known for his zombie novel, World War Z, which has been made into a movie. He knows how to pace the action, build suspense, and how to create a real page-turner.

One of the fascinating aspects of the book is how it weaves philosophical ideas into the action. When there is a moment of quiet, the narrator asks himself questions such as, “Who am I?” and “What is the meaning of this place?” I don’t know how much of that made an impression on my kids, but I like that I could expose them to that kind of thinking via a book.

In a way, the book is basically a long advertisement for Minecraft, but it was still very enjoyable for all of us.

The book has been on the New York Times bestseller list, and I can see why. It is not high literature and there are many passages with loose grammar that made me cringe a little. The ending felt a little rushed as well – as though the author wasn’t sure how to end it until most of it had already been written. But none of that matters for the kids.

I’m guessing there will be a sequel.