Just a Box?

By Goldie Taub Chernoff

Pictures by Margaret Hartelius

Copyright 1971

My children are in their twenties, yet we still have a playroom full of toys.  Some of these toys are homemade, some are gifts from Christmases and birthdays past, some are pre-loved toys we found at garage sales or flea markets, and some have now been enjoyed by two generations of children.  My Fisher Price Little People Schoolhouse and Mike’s box of Matchbox cars still sit out on the shelf.  These are all well-loved toys that come with happy memories.  Still, when we get together and talk about the “old days”, one of the best memories comes from an amazing two-story maze and fort fabricated from a set of huge cardboard boxes that kitchen cabinets were shipped in.  For a few months, the basement was taken over by this fort and many happy hours were spent literally getting lost in it.  

This book, Just a Box?, is from my personal childhood collection.  I can remember looking at it often, and trying a few of the ideas.  I’m sure I made a couple of the paper cup tepees, and I think I tried my hand at a puppet or two.   The idea is, of course, that a child doesn’t need expensive store bought toys when they have the chance to use her imagination.  

A cardboard box is a blank slate.  It can be anything you want it to be.  A Little Tykes play house is basically used only as a playhouse.  A plain box is a playhouse, a rocket ship, a train, a hiding place, a castle, or a cave.

We have some new neighbors next door – a family with several young children who like to play outside.  They have a whole row of store-bought toys lined up along the side of the yard.  What do they play with?  The sticks that they beg for from our yard.  I think we will save the next large box we get for them.  
 

The toy marketing industry tries to tell us otherwise, but we know the truth.  Children prefer playing with boxes than the toys that come in them.  A store bought toy has one use.  A cardboard box can be unlimited.