"I don't remember ever going to a toy store as a child. Although specialty toy stores existed in major cities like New York and Chicago as early as the 1860s, in the towns and suburbs where I lived no store had the primary purpose of selling toys to kids. ... I remember s that sold electric train sets and model-building kits, s where you could buy bikes and baseballs, and s and s that had toy departments, but these stores sold merchandise primarily to adults, not to children. Something radical happened in the intervening thirty-pls years in the marketing and selling of toys. Giant toy stores now dot the landscape, offering huge selections and low prices on toys made all over the world."