Mattel, the world’s largest toy manufacturer, is scheduled to announce a deal to become the new toy partner of World Wrestling Entertainment.

Some parents struggle with how to keep well-meaning loved ones from overdoing it with gifts for the children.

An amateur crafter attempting to build a toy from a long-ago era seeks the help of a man who would have been a boy when the instructions were written in 1937.

Toys “R” Us is identifying and promoting the next hot toy as part of a new commitment to service and supply that is helping it achieve a turnaround.

For girls, the season’s hottest toy is a set of fake hamsters; for boys, a series of battle cards and action figures inside small spheres.

Does “augmented reality” technology help us see deeper into what’s before our eyes?

In-Store Sweet William Bronagh Staley’s two-year-old shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is filled with stylish clothing, accessories and toys for the seesaw set. “I’m drawn to small labels, especially European ones, that make traditional kids’ items with a little bit of an edge,” says Staley, shown here with her son and muse, Fiontan. (112 North 6th Street; 718-218-6946; sweetwilliamltd.com) SANDRA BALLENTINE.

Devoid as they are of nostalgia, kids won’t really appreciate that the mustache included in the new wooden block set PlayShapes was inspired by Sgt. Pepper, nor that the toy has echoes of Alexander Girard, Enzo Mari and midcentury advertising illustrations. But what will please the little ones is that unlike that era’s blocks, which mostly encouraged the dutiful construction of towns and landscapes, the strange contours of the 74 PlayShapes will let them build whatever animal, vegetable or psyc...

More funky than flashy, a phalanx of doe-eyed fashion dolls are jostling for attention on toy shelves this season.

Sitting on a shelf in the nursery at 2 Willow Road, in the leafy London suburb of Hampstead, is a wooden square containing cutouts of the 26 letters in the alphabet. It is slightly shabby, as if the letters have been pushed in and pulled out by lots of little hands over the years which they have.