New store carries toys that help kids be kids again

Two years ago at Christmas, Ahwatukee Foothills resident Janet Hoo spent more money on shipping than on toys for her two young children.

Her son, now 7, wanted marbles to play with his grandfather, but Hoo couldn’t find marbles for him anywhere.

“There’s gotta be something better,” she concluded.

While traveling for business in Lansing, Mich., Hoo happened across Brilliant Sky Toys & Books. She fell in love with it, and decided to open up the toy store’s first franchise in the country.

Hoo held a grand opening for the store last weekend, in the Ahwatukee Hills Shopping Center, 4929 E. Chandler Blvd., complete with magicians, face painters, balloon makers and raffles. Everything in the store is very low to the ground. The shelves are all slightly shorter than an adult’s eye level. Hoo said it’s designed that way for the children, to encourage them to play with the toys and see if they like them before they take them home.

The store is divided up into sections so people can get a feel for what they’re looking for and they can find it in one area, and there is a lot of open space, which was designed for kids to play in.

“My biggest thing is I want it to be a fun place,” Hoo said. “I want children to come in and the parents to feel comfortable letting their children run around; letting the children see what they’re drawn to.”

Hoo said the animal figurines and other toys aren’t shielded behind casings like they are in other stores.

“(Kids) come in and they’ll grab a horse and the first thing the mom says is 'Don’t touch!’” Hoo said. “I say, 'We’re a toy store! Let them carry the horse around. They can put it back at the end.’ I guarantee you these things are going to get dropped, they’re gonna get scratched up. They’re fine - that’s what they’re designed for.”

The store carries games, puzzles, an arts section, science kits, marbles and plush animals - for both boys and girls. Hoo’s son made it a point to make sure there were stuffed animals for boys in stock, such as frogs, sharks, walruses, dinosaurs, killer whales and dragons.

“I don’t know how walruses came up, but he wanted a walrus,” Hoo said.

Brilliant Sky is the only one in the area to sell asthma-friendly plush by a vendor called Kids Preferred, as well as the only store that sells the full line of Playmobile toys in this area. It is a member of the Good Toy Group, which tests toys for children with special needs. It also offers complimentary gift wrapping, wish lists and fundraisers for schools.

Parents can also sign up for an enrichment card, where for every $10 you spend you get a point. Once you get 30 points, you get $15 back.

Hoo says they stay competitive by selling their products at the manufacturers’ retail price, and don’t mark up.

“When people think specialty toy store they think expensive, but we’re actually the same price point as mass markets,” Hoo explained. “Our average price point sits between $14 and $15.”

“Getting them back into playing”

Society is changing, and Hoo said she has begun to see a disturbing trend in children’s toys.

“What I want, bottom line, is I want toys that children are going to play with and, ultimately, learn from,” Hoo said, referencing a recent five-year study done by MIT on children third grade through eighth grade. It was looking at why creative writing and math scores are on a decline when the education level of parents is on an increase.

The study found that the children had been so exposed to toys that tell, such as computer games, Leap Frog games, games that we’ve trended to as a nation, that when they gave them characters to play with and said “now make them do something”... they couldn’t.

They were waiting for the toy to tell them what to do or the person to tell them what to do with the toy.

“Children are getting stuck on 'you told me the way, this is the way,’” Hoo said, “and it’s black and white, right or wrong. They lost the gray area.

“There’s critical skills in play that I think we’ve lost. They won’t pass the creative writing part of (AIMS) if they don’t have that play piece, and that’s what we’re seeing,” Hoo said. “They’ve got to be able to come up with a situation and an example in their head, but if they haven’t had that experience, it’s hard to write about it. As a parent I found that very interesting.”

She added that the concept of being able to take turns and winning and losing is different now than it was even 10 years ago, and they’re not learning about winning and losing until they’re much older.

Even sports, such as T-ball, baseball and soccer are non-competitive now for young children. Hoo said playing board games can rectify that.

“It was a hard thing for my 7-year-old to learn,” she noted. “Even things like Candyland it was the not cheating... or the cheating! How many times has a child played a board game and gotten the opportunity to try and cheat? They have to learn that you can’t cheat. And if you’re not doing it they can’t learn it.”

Hoo said a lot of parents tell their kids, “Don’t pull toys out, don’t make a mess!” The positive thing about video games is that they don’t go everywhere.

But the real question Hoo asks is this: “If you give your child blocks, can he entertain himself?”

Emily Behrendt can be reached at (480) 898-7911 or ebehrendt@aztrib.com.