T A B L E__T A L K

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Kid's Stuff: Toys and the Changing World of American Childhood
By Gary Cross, Harvard University Press, $29.95

What Kids Buy and Why: The Psychology of Marketing to Kids
By Dan S. Acuff and Robert H. Reiher, The Free Press, $28

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A kid's consumer soul in full cry is an ugly thing, not only because his repetitive, snot-choked whine can feel like a rusty, serrated blade sawing back and forth in your ear, but because we recognize that bloody howl as our very own. Indeed, one adequate definition of adulthood might be the ability to tamp down and dissemble this clamorous need for shiny, whirring purchasables. Grown-ups can rationalize: The box-set of Philly Sound CDs will boost my husband's spirits, or that tasty linen jacket will come in handy for job interviews. But, at bottom, truly, toys are us. Tikes know this and feel no shame. Their trick is to get their outsized greed in sync with your guilt about yours. When that happens, it's two more babes bound for toy land.

Was it always thus? Two new books -- "Kid's Stuff: Toys and the Changing World of American Childhood" by Gary Cross and "What Kids Buy and Why: The Psychology of Marketing to Kids" by Dan S. Acuff and Robert H. Reiher -- treat the gimme complex with high seriousness, providing both historical context and psychological insight. Cross gives us the big picture, toy-wise, how, over the past century, educational theories, child-rearing manuals, toy makers and modern marketing have shaped young consumers and what they consume. Acuff and Reiher are those modern marketers, and they've written an instruction manual on how to turn your cherub-faced li'l darling into a foaming, spitting knot of Barbie-crazed lust.

Back in the good old days, before Ninja Turtles, even before Pez dispensers, back in the 15th century, toys as such didn't exist. Wealthy children played with objects -- manger scenes, Noah's arks, engravings of animals or battles -- that originated as amusements for adults. For example, fashion dolls originated in the Middle Ages as portable mannequins on which the latest Parisian styles might circulate. After this practical service they would be passed along by mothers to daughters. Among the hoi polloi, rag-and-straw dolls or balls made out of animal wastes were popular. (They still are if you think about tossing around the ol' pigskin, originally a pig bladder.) But overall, considerable congruence existed between adult and child play and, as Cross points out, playthings "served common purposes in introducing the young to the tools, experiences and even emotional lives of their parents."

You can only have so much fun with animal waste. In the late 19th century, items like roller skates, bicycles, mechanical banks, sleds, air rifles and jack-in-the boxes made their mass-produced appearance. About this time the bacchanal excesses of Christmas were tidied up for domestic use and rechanneled as gift giving, especially to the young. Newly erupting parental anxiety about children's need for creative outlets dovetailed with this holiday ethos to launch a juggernaut of tinker toys and teddy bears. Trailing in its wake would come exhausted Santas and parents wrung free of their last dime by their child's trembling lip and the words "I wanna."

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