Great Book of Wooden Toys

This book was first published in 1986 and has recently been revised for the current generation of hobbyists and woodworkers. The author, Norm Marshall, passed away twenty-eight years ago, but this volume contains the designs for all of the wooden toys he created during his lifetime. Marshall takes a low key, common sense approach to toy making, suggesting, for example, that they can be built with hand tools and a few handyman power tools, while noting that the addition of other power tools can facilitate the building. Similarly, he takes a scrounger's approach to materials relying not only on wood from the local home centre or lumberyard but also abandoned furniture, flea market finds and so on. Although on first glance, his toys look fairly simple, they are in fact quite sophisticated and require a fair degree of skill and talent to get them right. There's plenty of measuring, shaping, gluing, assembling and finishing to be done for each toy; enough to challenge the average beginner to intermediate woodworker. There are plans, pictures, instructions and materials lists for over fifty wooden toys, including a F16 jet fighter, the Spirit of St. Louis trans-Atlantic airplane, a working crane, a Model T car, and a train with various cars. I was pleased to see that since these toys are meant to be played with, the instructions have been updated to include the latest information on non-toxic materials and finishes. Although they are not designed exactly to scale, they do not exhibit the chunkiness of many wooden toys. These models have a sleek, contemporary look to them. If I have one reservation about the book, it's that the projects seem geared more towards boys than girls. Perhaps it's a reflection of the times when these toys were designed, but the majority of these toys would be traditionally considered 'boy's toys' (e.g. trains, planes, boats, cars, and industrial equipment). Nevertheless, the enduring popularity of wooden toys and these in particular is a testament to the fun that kids have playing with them and that adults have making them.