This week is the annual Toy Fair at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City. While I unfortunately wasn’t able to attend, I’ve been living vicariously through other bloggers, NPR coverage, and lots and lots of on-line research. I also found this interesting Q&A with the Toy Industry Association, who also organizes the Toy Fair, regarding the toy safety industry and what measures are being taken to keep toys (and kids!) safe. They use a lot of vague words like “rigorous testing” and “progress” that makes me hopeful in foggy sort of way that there will be strides in the way products enter the toy market. In fact, the TIA has announced a new “Toy Safety Assurance Program” that will be open for public review and comment for one month only - February 22 through March 22, 2008. I urge you to please check back HERE for the published report - read it and give feedback, pass it around, get involved! We don’t want another Thomas disaster like last summer!

As an aside, check out the winners of the Toy of The Year Awards. Notice there’s not a single wooden or natural toy in the bunch. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I do wonder if there will ever be a shift in sentiment about what makes a ‘great’ toy. I think this is the heart of why I started teensygreen. My girls love Moon Sand and Polly Pocket just as much as Kapla Blocks and soy crayons. I’m totally ok with that, and of course, there has been amazing progress with the natural toy industry - the choices and availability for ‘better’ toys has exploded. But, what do you think progress actually is? Obviously, there will always be recalls of some sort - it’s just the nature of products. Also obviously, last summer’s lead recall onslaught was incredibly eye-opening and scary, and led to many changes in the minds of toy consumers. Do you think the mainstream toy industry will ever catch up, standards-wise, to what parents are demanding for the toy industry? Or, do you think toys like Aqua Dots will forever sneak their way onto the market?