The 30 Hottest Toys for Babies, Kids, and Teens

Monster Factory
The names and descriptions of these odd yet charming Monster Factory stuffed animals are worth the price alone. From the tattooed "Morley Boys" to "Owen," the blue gorilla, these aren't your usual plush-covered playthings; they look like they would be right at home in one of Damon Albarn's side projects. ($24.99 - $39.99)

Air Hogs Havoc Heli Lasers
Let's pretend you're 9 years old for a second. Would you want a set of radio-controlled, battery-powered helicopters that shoot infrared lasers? Would you want to battle your friend's team of helicopters, knocking them out of the sky, complete with obnoxiously loud sound effects? Yes. Yes, you would. ($79.99)

LEGO Star Wars Ultimate Collector's Millennium Falcon
With more than 5,000 pieces, this is the largest LEGO set ever put into production, one that produces a Millennium Falcon that's nearly three feet wide and two feet long. Granted, you'll be finding LEGO pieces between your couch cushions for the rest of your life, but this is the kind of toy that you'll love putting together as much as your kid will love playing with it. ($499)

VTech KidiJamz Studio
Got a little American Idol at home? Help him get his craft ready for Simon Cowell with VTech KidiJamz Studio. Kids can sing along with one of 15 songs and personalize their tracks, adding new sound effects, rhythms, and DJ scratches. Then you can record these masterpieces to a detachable music player so you can blackmail them when they're in high school. ($59.99) 

Transformers Movie Deluxe Figures
This collection of fully poseable, hyper-articulate, super-realistic versions of the characters in 2007's "Transformers" movie is bound to be hot this Christmas, mostly because toy collectors will be elbow-to-elbow with the 8-year-olds to get their hands on them. ($19.50 and up)

Sigikids Stuffed Animals
Most stuffed animals are made from chintzy materials and construction that can't hold up to the wear and tear of early childhood. These stuffed animals from Sigikids, made from soft terry cloth and more durable (and interesting) fabrics like corduroy, feature a wide array of interesting designs that will last until your kid's a teen. ($55-$112, Papa Palermo Rat $65)

Razor Pocket Mod Miniature Euro Electric Scooter
A mini take on the adult-size version but with added European flair, the Razor Pocket electric scooter is recommended for a 12-year-old but can accommodate a person up to 175 pounds. So after the kids are done with this minty-fresh gem — complete with a hand-operated rear break, under-seat storage compartment, and center-mount kickstand — you can take it out for a cruise of your own. ($198 - $399.99)

LeapFrog Didj Custom Learning Gaming System
Hide the PSP. Take the batteries out of the Game Boy. There's a new handheld video-game system that combines entertainment and education in one neat package. The Didj system — whose games star brand-name characters like SpongeBob SquarePants and Indiana Jones — also connects to the computer, so you can upload new lessons instead of playing the same boring game over and over again. ($89.99)

Mr. Potato Head: Taters of the Lost Ark
Finally, a toy tie-in that's better than the movie it's based on! (Granted, that's not very hard to do when you're talking about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.) This Potato Head variation includes everything you like about Indiana Jones (e.g., fedora, whip, and wise-guy smirk) and none of what you don't (craven attempts to capitalize on generational nostalgia). ($19.99)

LittleBigPlanet
The PS3's first killer family title hits this fall, starring a strange moppet named Sackboy. This one-player game unfolds in a beautiful, photorealistic world of stitched-together landscapes that is truly immersive and customizable. Kids can spend years, though — as will you, you'll soon discover — making their own levels and sharing them with others online with the game's easy-to-use built-in world-building toolkits. ($59.99)

Struwwelpeter, by Heinrich Hoffmann
Struwwelpeter, which means "shock-headed Peter" in German, is considered a classic (and an overlooked one, at that) of children's literature. The 160-year-old book uses rhyming couplets and descriptive imagery to tell the tales of children who misbehave, from tormenting animals to sucking their thumbs to fidgeting at meals. Scary, silly fun for all. ($6.95)

Hulk Smash Hands
There's nothing better than seeing a tiny child with massive green fists punching things at random, while a cacophony of smashing noises emerges from his hands. (Well, provided it's not your tiny child doing the punching and your things getting destroyed.) The Hulk Smash Hands are so much fun, you'll want to try them on, too. ($24.99)

Kidz Bop 80s Gold
Like a CIA psych experiment gone horribly wrong, kids like to listen to the same thing over and over again until their parents end up bleeding from the ears. With this record, which features a chorus of children singing Reagan-era hits like "Livin' on a Prayer," at least you'll be able to sing along, too. ($17.94)

Air Fork One
Skip pretending your kid's fork is an airplane just to get him to eat — with Air Fork One, your child is too fascinated by his silverware to even ask you to add the annoying sound effects. The stainless steel fork is dishwasher- and kid-friendly, encouraging picky eaters and aspiring jet pilots alike to gobble up their Chef Boyardee. ($9.99)

Fraggle Rock Complete First Season
Like The Muppet Show but minus the cornball humor and ancient guest stars, Jim Henson's Fraggle Rock was the hippie answer to educational television when it debuted in 1983. The show's colorful Fraggles engage with other "races" of creatures, creating complex social dramas about prejudice, spirituality, and personal identity. They also touch their heads together to "share dreams." Ah, silly hippies. ($49.99)

K's Kids I Am the Boss
Bring the McDonald's ball pit home, without the unsanitary conditions. This adorable dinosaur unzips to expose a mini pit filled with 60 plastic balls for your baby to wiggle around in and yes, drool all over. But at least you know whose drool it is. ($89.99)

Wario Land: Shake It
The biggest knock on the Nintendo Wii — outside of the fact no one can seem to find it in stores — is the crude graphics. Wario Land: Shake It definitely changes that, with crisp graphics and smooth animation, along with what you come to expect from a Wario game: bodily noises. This side-scrolling game plays like an update of those old Super Nintendo classics, packed with enemies to bop on the head, coins to collect, and secrets to unlock. Plus, as we said, there are bodily noises. ($49.99)

Smart Cycle Physical Learning Arcade
It looks like an exercise bike for toddlers, but the Smart Cycle Physical Learning Arcade is far more than that, combining physical activity with mental challenges. The result is like WiiFit for toddlers, an arcade system that not only teaches basic counting and reading skills but also keeps your kid active and healthy. Let's see a regular video-game system do that. ($100)

Snap Circuits SC-300
Like the Easy-Bake Oven for the little nerd in training, Snap Circuits electronics kits are packed with transistors and capacitors that can be assembled to make more than 300 different projects, like FM radios, digital voice recorders, AM radios, and burglar alarms. All the parts you need come in the box, and no tools are required. All that's missing is four AA batteries and a smart child. ($59.99)

65 Years of Little Golden Books
Way back in the 1940s, children used to read these things called "books." By all accounts, these decidedly low-tech affairs featured things like "words" that required children to use something called "imagination." This set of books, which celebrates Little Golden Books' 65th anniversary and includes such classics as The Poky Little Puppy and Saggy Baggy Elephant (and four other books whose names kinda rhyme), will give them something better to do before bedtime than watching TV. ($17.94)

LeapFrog Tag Reading System
This season, LeapFrog offers a new innovation: the Tag Reading System, a penlike device that actually "reads" the words in books, using a tiny camera in its tip. Download new Tag-friendly books from LeapFrog's small but growing online collection and track your child's reading progress using LeapFrog.com's Learning Path center. Your kids will read themselves to sleep in no time. ($49.99)

Loud Enough Ear Buds
Studies show that hearing loss starts young and quickly becomes irreversible. (See Grandpa for more details.) These Loud Enough Ear Buds will get children off to a good start, automatically reducing sound-pressure levels up to 20 decibels so that your child can groove to the High School Musical 2 soundtrack without worry that Zac Efron is permanently damaging her eardrums. Sense of taste? Perhaps. But eardrums, no. ($40)

Spore Video Game
Spore is The Sims set to God Mode, in which you grow life from a single cell and eventually build your menagerie of critters into a world-conquering empire. Add deep astrobiological underpinnings, and you've got a terrifyingly good science toy for the non-Creationist families out there. ($49.99)

24-Piece Disney Dress-Up Trunk
A sturdy trunk holds two dozen pieces of Disney princess glamour for the little girl (or incredibly progressive little fella) who dreams of being Belle, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, or Snow White. And the best part: If you lose one or a few of the pieces, your darling girl will still have enough to dress herself and her playmates, too. ($39.98)

Webkinz Collective Lil'Kinz Mini Plush Stuffed Animals Cow
As if you needed more proof we're entering a postapocalyptic age where robots have taken over, there are Webkinz, stuffed animals that connect to the Internet. Log on to the Webkinz site, enter an "adoption code," then join a virtual world where kids can play educational games with other kids. Granted, this kind of thing used to be done at a place called the playground, but the robot overlords are gaining power. ($10.95, amazon.com)

Radio Flyer Classic Tiny Trike
With electric scooters and tiny fake automobiles schlepping kids around, it's easy to forget simpler, human-powered modes of transport. Remind your kids that they've got legs for a reason with this iconic Radio Flyer Classic Tiny Trike, made from wood (not plastic) with shiny chrome handles and grip tread wheels. Batteries not included, or even necessary. ($54.99)

Harry Potter Hardcover Boxed Set
If you know what Quidditch, Muggles, or Gryffindor is, then you don't need anyone to tell you what Harry Potter is all about. And if you don't know what any of those terms mean, find out for yourself with this boxed set, which includes hardcover editions of all seven books in a decorative cardboard trunk. ($136.50)

Team Baby Entertainment
Attention, residents of Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Seattle: You can get your children ready for decades of heartbreak, misery, and bone-crushing disappointment with these half-educational/half-brainwashing DVDs that teach the rules of a sport while also introducing them to the sports franchise that will ruin their lives forever. Includes NBA, MLB, NASCAR, and NCAA football teams, so you can cover all the bases. ($15)

Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise
Kids' games sure are odd. In the latest version of Viva Piñata, your children collect Day-Glo piñatas in a little garden and have them reproduce, creating more cute-yet-creepy characters for them to trade with friends. The result is totally addictive, especially if you're 8 years old and all of this makes total sense to you. ($39.99)

Wild Planet Animal Scramble
Convinced your kid is part Ping-Pong ball? Settle down those rambunctious tendencies with the Wild Planet Animal Scramble, which combines physical activity and cognitive skills. An electronic giraffe provides a clue; kids answer by sprinting to an animal. Clues get harder as the game — which can be played alone or in a group— progresses. The winner? Parents of silent, exhausted children. ($29.95)

Reprinted with permission from Hearst Communications, Inc.

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