This Week’s Writing Prompt:
American toy icon Barbie turned sixty years old a few months back. Ruth Handler, inspired by her daughter’s paper dolls, debuted Barbie at the New York Toy Fair on March 9, 1959. Beginning as a doll in a swimsuit, sporting a ponytail and holding white sunglasses, Barbie evolved by leaps and bounds in the decades that followed.
Barbie has been a surgeon, an astronaut, a news anchor, and a mom. She’s been the Duchess of Cambridge, a fashion editor, flight attendant, and executive career girl. Recently, manufacturer Mattel created the Sheroesline to celebrate real-life female role models such as pioneering NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, aviator Amelia Earhart, and artist Frida Kahlo among many others.
Mattel continues to expand its offerings to include a variety of body shapes, skin colors, hair textures, and representations of physical disabilities. Girls around the world still delight in playing with Barbie and her vast line of accessories.
G.I. Joe was developed in 1963 by Stan Weston, introduced to the world by Hasbro on February 2, 1964, and served as a favorite childhood toy for many boys. The initial product offering represented the four branches of the United States Armed Forces with the Action Soldier (US Army), Action Sailor (US Navy), Action Pilot (US Air Force), and Action Marine (US Marine Corps). Weston’s creation coined the term action figure, which describes any poseable doll intended for boys.
Whether it was a doll, action figure, car, train, or stuffed animal, most of us recall a toy we treasured as youngsters. What’s yours?
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- What was your most beloved toy?
- Describe its shape, appearance, and texture.
- What feelings come to mind when you think of that toy?
- Write about a typical interaction or time of play with this toy.
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Share your response in the comments section below.
All posts in response to our writing prompts in September will be entered into our drawing to win a free online coaching video—that’s a $20 value!
2 Comments
Pam Ogles
Writing Prompt
How I loved my board games! My favorite was the game called Life. I received it for Chrisrmas and played constantly especially with my brother and sister.
I remember the big colored tiles encircling the words Life on the front of the big white box. Excitedly I would set up the game with its plastic bridge, yellow cards and dice. Every game was different depending upon the players. Whoever reached the end of the spots or the end of Life without too many mishaps was the winner! I loved the game of Life.
Diane Gosheff
I go back further than Barbie’s era. My favorite play with cousin Marcia occurred in 1951-1954, ages 7-10. Two chrome pistols sat in two holsters, strapped around my waist. The holster belt and holsters were dark tan with silver studs around them A large silver buckle my guns slung low over my blue jeans. Sometimes I wore my red cowgirl hat, faux leather vest, and leather boots. Teamed with a riding horse made from a 5 foot long stick and string reins pushed through a hole in the stick’s top, Marcia and I rode our stallions around Nana’s large yard and white sandy driveway that circled the sides and back of the house in Pompano Beach. We fought Indians and rustlers, stagecoach robbers, and anyone who wasn’t an upstanding citizen. My heroes were Roy and Dale Rogers, Gene Autry, Hop-a-long Cassidy, the Cisco Kid, and sexy Lash Larue. We invented stories for our characters that lasted for hours. Our pistols had a roll of red paper caps in each gun that popped when I aimed and fired, a whiff of gun smoke drifting in the air. Powerful-that’s how I felt playing cowboys and Indians.
I’d like to do those days again.