A Guide to Toys Galore for Little Consumers

Confidential to parents of young children: A new magazine hits newsstands today that could be dangerous in the hands of your kids.

It’s about toys.

Toy Wishes ($4.99) is a slick annual consumer shopping guide that’s 232 pages of the hottest, newest and most collectible toys on the market: World Wrestling Federation action figures, Barbie, Furby Babies and, of course, Pokemon. (Trend-slave alert: The premiere issue has four special pullout Pokemon cards. While licensed and official, they’re collectibles, not playing cards.)

In the hands of adults, Toy Wishes is a road map to the head-spinning array of toys and games on the market, with stories on everything from toy safety and items for physically challenged kids to stress-free shopping. In the hands of children (in theory anyway, according to its co-publisher, Jim Silver), it’s a handy reference for holiday wish lists. In reality, it may be a one-way ticket to the land of Gimmethisnow!

“I got phone calls from parents saying, ‘I love you, I hate you and I love you,’ ” says Silver, who has published a toy guide for the trade for 15 years. “They love the magazine, they brought it home and gave it to their 6-year-old, who now wants everything. So they hate the magazine.”

No ads for or stories on graphically violent video games appear anywhere in the publication.

“I have a 4-, a 6- and an 8-year-old,” Silver explains. “There’s nothing in here I would have to hide from my child. That was a really easy decision.”

But even Silver learned the hard way what a parental pain his own magazine can be.

“I gave the magazine to my daughter,” he says. “She marked it up, she picked out 23 items. I told her to bring it down to six.”