A pink sisterhood of Barbies is ready to kick some balls.Illustration by EDWIN FOTHERINGHAM

Are toys passé? Would a child give the time of day to a model-train set or to finger paints when, not far from the playroom, the sirens of Penguin Whacker on the iPhone, and Fruit Ninja on the iPad, beckon? (A Lionel train set, at Zitomer, 969 Madison Avenue, at 76th, is $200; Alex Bathtub Finger Painting Kit, at F. A. O. Schwarz, 767 Fifth Avenue, at 58th Street, is $14.99; iTunes, free and 99 cents.) With today’s children setting their sights (at ever-younger ages) on electronics, clothes, cosmetics, and “Jersey Shore,” you might do better to give them credit cards or a retirement fund than a pogo stick (Flybar Super Pogo 2, at amazon.com; $99.95).

“Nobody’s ever too old for toys,” a ten-year-old contrarian named Addie Ezersky told me. “Even if they say they are. That is my theory.” A young mother I know agrees. She says that toys will endure for two reasons: to give parents a break to use the bathroom or wash the dishes, and to keep kids away from what they really want to play with—namely, sharp objects and disgusting things.

They may be onto something. Despite the omnipresence of digital amusements (among children aged two to fourteen who have access to a computer, half regularly download material onto cell phones, game consoles, and MP3 players), toy sales fell less than one per cent last year. Some analysts are expecting the industry to grow two per cent this year. Even the toys are whooping it up. So many of them contain electronic components—one expert puts the figure at fifty per cent—that playtime can be a matter of pushing a button and watching as the toy has all the fun.

Over the past month, I visited most of the toy stores around town and combed through dozens of catalogues and Web sites, encountering dolls that drink and wet (the Children’s General Store, 168 East 91st Street; $50.75), pirate ships that can be put together with Velcro (fao.com; $29.99), Teddy bears dressed more stylishly than I am (Dinosaur Hill, 306 East 9th Street; $80-$200), cherrywood baby rattles so burnished they could be handles on a George Nakashima bureau (Dinosaur Hill; $20), and a boy who threw a half-hour-long tantrum in the Lego store after his mother refused to buy him the Tantive IV Star Wars Set (620 Fifth Avenue, at Rockefeller Center; $179). “A hundred dollars is not a lot of money!” he wailed. Read on to see the results of my wanderings.

The winner of the Cheapest Toy That Will Ruin Your Credit Card Award goes to Buckyballs. These tapioca-size rare-earth spherical magnets come clumped together in sets of two hundred and sixteen. They make it possible for your child (or you) to fritter away long hours configuring sculptures, jewelry, and complex patterns, to the annoyance of anyone who is trying to engage the addict in conversation. Beware: they may be tiny, but they have the magnetic power to wipe out your computer’s hard drive and denature the strip on your credit card (E.A.T. Gifts, 1062 Madison Avenue, at 80th Street; $35).

In the category of Educational Toy That Could Pass for a Real Toy, the high scorer was Tetraxis, a magnetic geometry puzzle, in which you try to assemble colorful geometric pieces into a whole (momath.org; $24.99). It’s challenging but not throw-it-across-the-room challenging. Bonus points for knowing that the structure is arranged along directions common in nature, similar to carbon or silicon atoms. This factoid also makes for a dandy conversation stopper.

In a 2006 survey measuring the scientific literacy of fifteen-year-olds, the United States ranked twenty-first among thirty developed countries. The Americans’ dismal performance is not for want of brainy toys, especially this year, with so many entrants in the running for the Science Kit That Will Lead to a Career at M.I.T. or the Morgue Award. A construction set called Snap Circuits equips whippersnappers with everything they need to build doorbells, car alarms, sirens, and more, using no tools, since all the parts pop into place—everything, that is, except membership in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (West Side Kids, 498 Amsterdam Avenue, at 84th Street, $31.99 for a hundred projects; Hammacher Schlemmer, 147 East 57th Street, $89.95 for five hundred). Thames & Kosmos offers more than sixty different lab sets, each focussing on a specific subject, ranging from physics to perfume study, each packaged in a very big box (Thamesandkosmos.com; perfume set, $59.95). Primary Science Set is a chemistry kit geared toward little hands (amazon.com; $26.14). Fascinations World Alive Worm Observatory is what it says it is, with a proviso that you bring your own wrigglers (amazon.com; $22.43). The Diet Coke and Mentos Kit teaches you how to design geysers with stuff you can get at a 7-Eleven (makershed.com; $35). The recipient of the You’re Never Too Young to Win a Nobel Prize Prize is ScienceWiz DNA, which gives you the means to isolate DNA from a fruit, build a DNA ladder, and unzip and duplicate DNA (West Side Kids; $19.99).

Here’s a tip: If you lose your child at the American Museum of Natural History, try the gift shop, where she’s likely hovering with the other lost kids near the shelf that houses the Robot Claw ($9.99), a spring-driven grip that can snag hard-to-reach objects. Among the nearby objects worth grabbing: a silver-and-white velour NASA helmet ($24.99); Pet Tornado, the twister in a tube ($6.99); the Mammoth Excavation kit, which enables kids to dig up a dinosaur from a clay mound ($12.99); and a pack of fifty-to-sixty-million-year-old shark teeth ($4.99).

The most dangerous-looking safe toy around must surely be the Geospace Pump Rocket, which shoots a forty-inch-long projectile up to a hundred and fifty feet in the air and appears to belong to North Korea. Take a closer look: it has a foam tip (American Museum of Natural History; $15.99). Speaking of weaponry, the He Seemed Nice But Was Kind of a Loner Award goes to the Nerf N-Strike Stampede ECS Blaster (Toys “R” Us, in Times Square; $54.99). This semi-automatic plaything dispatches rounds of sponge artillery in swift succession, because, nowadays, mass annihilation is considered family fun, whereas pretend guns that knock off pretend victims one at a time are viewed as sending a not-nice message.

When I was looking at toy firearms, I couldn’t help wondering what the I.R.A. would have made of the Potato Gun. This lightweight piece shoots rapid-fire slugs of spud. It can be found at Alphabets, a cozy shop downtown that wins the prize for Best Retro Toy Store Run by a Former Nun (115 Avenue A, at 7th Street; $3.95).

Anyone looking for a gift that goes well with a personal-liability insurance policy should pick up a copy of “Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Kids Do).” This audacious activity book instructs readers how, for instance, to deconstruct appliances, play with fire, make a bomb in a bag, lick a nine-volt battery, and sundry other things (amazon.com; $25.95). Run!

If you’re afraid that your child does not have enough phobias, “Fireman’s Safety Hints,” an illustrated board book, will unfailingly keep him up nights, rehashing the story of a cheery family living in a house that is riddled with deadly fire hazards. The book explains how to avoid mishaps and what to do if your happy home ever catches fire or there is a gas explosion (New York City Fire Museum, 278 Spring Street; $10.99).

In 1693, the philosopher John Locke suggested that learning to read could be a more enjoyable experience if there were “Dice and Play-things with the Letters on them, to teach Children the Alphabet by playing.” The father of liberalism and blocks would have loved Dinosaur Hill, where abecedarian wooden blocks come in fifteen languages, including Hebrew, Korean, Arabic, Norwegian, Braille, and American Sign Language ($39-$43). The store also stocks elegant Anker blocks, from Germany, molded out of quartz sand, chalk, and linseed oil. According to the British Web site that sells the blocks, after the First World War the company’s American subsidiaries were confiscated by the United States, which feared that, by developing the technical skills of German youngsters, the blocks would empower Germany to start another war. Anker blocks are a gift of choice for grownup architects. Future Howard Roarks might like something from the architecture series, such as Rockefeller Center ($39.99) or the White House ($49.99). (By the way, Lego wins the Worst Toy to Step On Award.)

Enchanted (1179 Lexington Avenue, at 80th Street) stocks non-plastic playthings that even design-snob parents can tolerate. This tree house of a shop, which donates its profits to the Waldorf Schools organization, does not believe in batteries, let alone Barbie, plastic, or TV tie-ins. It peddles tasteful, hand-finished wooden toys, such as refrigerators nicer than most armoires or Sub-Zeros ($415), mobiles of winsome fairies trimmed with felt garlands and fairy wool ($55), colorful silk scarves for ethereal games of dress-up ($14), and an arsenal of medieval daggers and swords ($35-$43). “We encourage sword fighting for young boys because it is modelled after knighthood, which has a code of ethics,” Gloria Mills, one of the shop’s founders, told me. “When a boy walks out with a sword, we always say, ‘Swords are for protecting damsels in distress against dragons. They’re not for poking the defenseless.’ ”

Toys from Japan are so hip that they’re called art. At Toy Tokyo, a large showroom packed with fabulous arty weirdness, you’ll find a lot of them, as well as a fat Ronald McDonald, Marilyn Monroe with Mickey Mouse heads for breasts, a flock of ghoulish Tweety Birds with x’d-out eyes, and Harold the Smoking Penguin (91 Second Avenue, at 6th Street; $3-$7,500). Mr. Corn Sad Tender, an ear of corn, partially husked and wearing a heartbreakingly sad face, is one of the many oddball plush toys at Kidrobot (118 Prince Street; $19.95). The shop trades mainly in whimsical vinyl art action figures, such as Matt Groening’s Lard Lad, a six-inch fellow clasping a doughnut, and Devilrobots’ Tofu Sis, which seems to have the body of the Michelin Man and the head of a cube of tofu (both $39.95). On Yoyamart’s pleasingly arranged shelves you’ll find a white vinyl monkey ($45) as well as an enormous collection of jolies laides Uglydolls (15 Gansevoort Street; $7.50-$50). Shoppers searching for cactus-themed plush toys and anime-illustrated skateboards, try Tokidoki (176 Spring Street; $20, $60-$68).

The Earplugs, Anyone? Award this year was collected by the Paper Jamz Guitar, a cardboard-thin electronic facsimile of an electric guitar, with a built-in speaker, that lets you rock out merely by touching the frets and strings (Mary Arnold Toys, 1010 Lexington Avenue, at 72nd Street; $35). And for a toy that approximates the whining sound a child makes when you tell him to stop playing it, there’s the Otamatone. This surreal instrument, shaped like a musical note and roughly the size of a clarinet, produces eerie theremin-like whoops when you slide your hand up and down its neck (AC Gears, 69 East 8th Street; $49.99).

“Just so you know, I’m taking all this with me into the afterlife.”

My vote for the most oxymoronic toy in town goes to the Miniature Baby Grand Piano. This chromatically tuned instrument, with a two-octave range, graceful spinet legs, and a Lilliputian bench, comes in Liberace White or Barbie Pink (Mary Arnold; $155). A Musical Mention goes to the downtown shop Kidding Around (60 West 15th Street), which has a wonderful collection of noisemakers from artisans around the world; for instance, Sun, Moon, Stars Drums, a set of percussion instruments from Peru, resembles three big lollipops ($34.99); the bamboo Reco-Reco, from Bolivia, is just the thing for free-style scraping ($14).

In the category of best sound-mixing—or at least the most easy-listening—toys are Mattel’s Sing-a-ma-jigs. These adorable stuffed animals look like Teletubbies on a diet. Give their bellies a poke, and they rhapsodize (with movable lips) like a barbershop quartet, each creature capable of talking, singing, and harmonizing with its friends (Babies “R” Us, 24-30 Union Square East; $12.99).

As for the Toy I Wouldn’t Kick Out of Bed, the Infant’s Sleep Sound Lamb can rest assured. This cuddly stuffed animal emits four sounds—a mother’s heartbeat as heard from inside the womb, a soothing rain shower, the whoosh of ocean surf, and the song of a whale—but try to get it to baa? Silence of the lamb (Hammacher Schlemmer; $29.95).

The quietest toys of all, and the ones most beloved of grandparents, according to a salesclerk, are those made of felt. Besides lacking the capacity to make loud clanking noises, felt is colorful, tactile, and safe. Despite this, a young child would be amused by FeltTales Dinosaur Days, a cushiony tabula rasa on which cutouts of felt dinosaurs and dinosaur scenery can be positioned and repositioned as the mood suits (American Museum of Natural History; $19.99).

Who’s the neediest doll these days? American Girl. This line of dolls, which started out with a handful of characters rooted in American history and grew to include contemporary models (including Gwen, the homeless American Girl), teaches us that all girls, no matter what the era, love to accessorize, and that all have identical facial features, although perhaps different skin tones. The latest thing American Girl dolls covet, apparently, is dental equipment: stick-on braces, orthodontic headgear to straighten their (perfect) teeth (comes with attached neck strap), retainers in plastic cases, and a faux electric toothbrush (the Healthy Smile Set, at American Girl, 609 Fifth Avenue, at 49th Street; $14).

Let’s hear it for Barbie! Despite the current unemployment numbers, this can-do doll has managed to hold down an endless assortment of jobs, from SeaWorld Trainer to Presidential Candidate and TV Chef (amazon.com; $21.95, $38.99, $59.98). One version of Barbie even comes with a video camera around her neck and a monitor embedded in her back (Barbie Video Girl, at Toys “R” Us; $44.99). Moreover, no matter what the state of the housing market, she always has dreamy digs. Her current fully furnished three-story house comes with a working elevator, a fireplace, a Jacuzzi, and a toilet that makes realistic flushing sounds ($185.99). Don’t you just know that Ken can fix a toilet?

This season, Barbie wins the medal for Sexiest Supporting Role on a Foosball Table. F. A. O. Schwarz is offering a limited-edition version of the traditional soccer table game, replacing the male-soccer-player pins with a pink sisterhood of Barbies ready to strut their leggy stuff and kick some balls ($25,000). Speaking of Barbie, one gadget you’ll never buy a replacement battery for is the Sarah Palin Talking Key Chain. It spouts sound bites like “You can see Russia from Alaska” and “We eat, therefore we hunt” (E.A.T. Gifts; $15).

Without question, the Creatures Most Likely to Be Mistaken for Cher are the new Monster High dolls—several gothsome teen-age girls and one freaky boy, who are all descended from monsters and who each come with a pet, a diary, and a hairbrush. Mattel is betting the haunted house on them, having introduced the clique with Webisodes this summer (Toys “R” Us; $24.99). He may be eighty-two years old, but Dance Star Mickey is two-stepping off the shelves. In the tradition of Bristol Palin and Rod Blagojevich, this fifteen-inch plush boogying blabbermouse has a repertoire of six songs and dances, including the moonwalk (amazon.com; $88.88).

For a most charming non-Disney rodent, a Danish company called Maileg makes darling cloth mice, approximately three and a half inches long, who live in matchboxes and dress in clothes that Beatrix Potter would have approved of. (At Kidding Around, a set that includes box, mouse, blanket, and pillow is $24.99; a mouse pram is $19.99.)

Sophie the Teething Giraffe is head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to Tastiest Ungulate. This wide-eyed vintage-inspired squeaky toy seems to hit the spot with the semi-toothless set ($22.99). “Maybe because she’s from Paris,” Melissa Gayer, one of the owners of HomBoms, a homey store at 1500 First Avenue (at 78th Street), suggested.

Only once as I was toy-shopping did I wonder whether I had mistakenly wandered into a porn theatre. It was when I heard the question “Would you like your bear soft, medium, or hard?” At Build-a-Bear Workshop, children are welcome to choose a flaccid carcass of a bear, bunny, puppy, or other furry friend and, before dressing it, take it to the in-store stuffing station to have it pumped full of synthetic fibre, a process that is similar to filling up your car with gas (565 Fifth Avenue, at 46th Street; $12-$25). For a different class of bear, Zitomer is having a half-price sale on exquisite collectible mohair Teddies by Steiff ($45-$400).

In the transportation category, the Citation for Greenest Guzzler goes to a dump truck made from recycled plastic milk containers (Dinosaur Hill; $27.50). As for the vehicle I’d most like to drive, however, or at least put on my desk: a sleek Automoblox roadster made of beechwood and trimmed with plastic and rubber. The cars can be taken apart, and if you have more than one they can be recombined into a new model (the Children’s General Store; $11-$12.50). If you’re in the market for a dependable adaptation of a New York vehicle, pick up one or two or a handful of the sturdy wooden mini-replicas of the very subway cars on which you’ve experienced “momentary delays,” such as the Flushing Local and the Lexington Avenue Express (New York Transit Museum, intersection of Boerum Place and Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn; $9.95). __

Another gift with a subtle New York City theme is Gross Magic, an assortment of ickiness that includes cockroaches that materialize out of thin air, and liquefying eyeballs (Fantasma Magic, 421 Seventh Avenue, at 33rd Street, second floor; $6.99). More uncouth youth might prefer Little Jokers Disgusting Practical Jokes, a bunch of repulsive gags, featuring a floating eyeball, fake vomit, and spider soap (Museumtour.com; $29.99).

Now for Game So Awesome Only Someone Under Twenty Can Explain Why—the winner is Call of Duty: Black Ops (walmart.com; $54.96). What is it? “I don’t know,” Bob Friedland, a senior manager of public relations for Toys “R” Us, told me. “I’ve never played it, but it’s going to be very popular.” Hint: C.I.A. operatives, Soviet chemical-weapon codes, and flesh-eating zombies are pivotal. Regarding digital distractions, a college student I know recommends Echo Bazaar, an adventure game rich with clever machinations, set in a lugubrious Victorian London a mile beneath the earth (“Far and away the best browser game of today. Why? Flavor and story—those things that girls like”), and Dragon Age (“Quoth my friend Adam: ‘You can create a protagonist whom you really do have an enormous amount of control over’ ” ).

Aspiring Marcel Marceaus, mime your way over to the Kinect for Xbox 360. Throw away the remote control, if you haven’t already lost it. This console comes with built-in motion sensors, allowing it to be manipulated by a player gesturing nearby. Chatterboxes: Kinect also responds to voice commands (Best Buy, 1280 Lexington Avenue, at 86th Street; $299 for four GB).

Help! There are no electrical outlets available in the whole house! The Village Chess Shop, at 230 Thompson Street, is a clubby spot where enthusiasts can take lessons, checkmate each other, and purchase sets, exotic or standard. (The Elvis chess set is $49; a Civil War-themed set is $690; a football-player set is $35; the hand-carved Kisi-stone set from Kenya is $61.)

The winner in the Games I Most Don’t Want to Play category is This Way to Jobs. A kind of killjoy Candyland, the board game was sent to every congressional office last month by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in an attempt to make the case against government regulation. Players representing the C.E.O., the Entrepreneur, and so on, try to make their way to Prosperity Park, avoiding such obstacles as Health Care Hill, Labor Lagoon, and Energy Edge (not for sale, but playable online at thiswaytojobs.com). Other brain-hurting but entertaining diversions include Scrabble Flash, a high-speed electronic version of the classic word game (amazon.com; $20); Sort It Out!, a rollicking family game that poses quirky questions such as how much elephant poop weighs ($18.76); The Settlers of Catan, a wildly popular fantasy board game for those who like to read endless instructions and acquire mythical territories ($33.60); Forbidden Island, a gorgeously illustrated team game, and winner of a Mensa Brainy Game Award, that rewards coöperation ($14.07); and Set, a card game that Christina Clark, the proprietress of Kidding Around, recommends above all others ($13.99). (Vintagegameworld.com stocks thousands of out-of-production games from as early as 1878, including 4th Reich ($49.99), Bed Bugs ($29.99), Chutzpah ($69.99), and Mid-Life Crisis ($29.99).

The big little things du jour are Squinkies. These itty-bitty squishy creatures come packaged in clear-plastic bubbles the size of jawbreakers. Like many “collectibles,” they are priced judiciously low so that your child can own them all (puppies, ponies, babies, frogs, and more), thus turning a deceptively low-cost critter into an expensive hobby (HomBoms; $9.99).

Why shouldn’t your toys have toys? No place has as many stocking stuffers (a.k.a. choking hazards) as the Tiny Doll House (314 East 78th Street). Here you can buy your doll a box of ultra-tiny toy soldiers—one-quarter inch!—from the Highland Infantry ($95 for a set of eight) and a rocking horse that rocks ($90).

Also small enough to slip into a sock, and my choice for Toy That Will Survive Us All, is the HexBug. These clear-plastic micro-robotic creatures, made in bright colors and various vermin-aping shapes, first showed up two years ago, but this season they are back with a vengeance, scurrying across floors, reacting to sound, light, and any obstacles in their way. The newest subspecies, the Nano, can flip itself over when laid on its back. But, so far, none of these creatures can infest your mattress. (HexBug Nano Habitat Set, at the American Museum of Natural History; $39.99.)

If anything can make the dreidel cool, it might just be the Beyblade. The Lamborghini of spinning tops, the Beyblade grew out of an anime TV show of the same name. This highly engineered object is launched with a rip cord, which allows it to go where no top has gone before, or at least to go there faster (Beyblade Metal Fusion, in a three-pack of five-piece customizable tops, at Toys “R” Us; $14.99).

What could be better than a toy that helps locate the little lost pieces from other toys? Armed with the Child’s Metal Detector (Hammacher Schlemmer; $99.95), your kid can track down the missing part from her six-hundred-and-ten-piece Special Edition Erector Set (amazon.com; $62.87). Then you can send her on a search behind the sofa for enough loose change to pay for it all.

Remember books? Remember handwriting? Remember gratitude? When the merriment’s all over, Postcards from Penguin, a handsomely packaged set of a hundred postcards of assorted Penguin Classic covers (“The Great Gatsby,” “Keeping Poultry and Rabbits on Scraps,” “The Conquest of Gaul”), are a snappy way for you (and your well-mannered child) to send notes of appreciation for all of the above (amazon.com; $16.50). ♦