The hottest toys for Christmas

What's gorgeous for girls...

This season sees the most popular doll brand, Barbie®, portrayed in her sixth magical animated movie, Barbie® and the Magic of Pegasus. This DVD/Video feature movie is supported by a full range of accessories including the Princess Annika Barbie® doll with a light up wand, Brietta the Pegasus and Shiver plush polar bear toy. Prince Aidan and Cloud Queen Rayla round off the various items role play goodies available for precious princess everywhere!

Girls can continue the magic with the new Baby Annabell doll which now cries 'real tears' and burps! Baby Born was last season's best selling baby doll and continues to be a favourite among little girls and parents as she combines both play and educational value. Over 11 million dolls have been sold worldwide and this season's model has eight manually operated functions: she drinks, wets her diaper, eats, uses the potty, she squeaks, cries and can be bathed. (Watch out for that 'mother' stereotyping...)

Every budding ballerina should have the Bella Dancerella. The double sided mat, an easy-to-assemble barre and a 30-minute dance-along DVD will nurture and develop basic skills for the ballet world and introduce little dancers to the exciting world of ballet. It has already claimed the 2004 Girl Toy of the Year Award at the New York Toy Awards.

What's hot for boys?

Hot Wheels... It's all about speed, power and performance, wrapped in attitude! The Scorpion Sting highlights survival against a gigantic scorpion with a stunt track that features target shooting a moving Scorpion target. One Dad and his Hot Wheels enthusiast stand a chance of winning a trip to a European Grand Prix in 2006 at any Toys R Us outlet before the 18th of December 2005!

Fantasy Figures Rule this Christmas! A huge range of hot figurines and action characters for Batman Begins will be widely available for Batman fans everywhere this Christmas. With the Batman Begins Deluxe Batmobile, Batman thunders through Gotham City in his high-tech ride that includes electronics which bring key scenes from the movie to life. The rocket engine in the rear and lasers in the front both light up and include cool sound effects. The car, which is an exact replica of the mobile in the Batman Begins movie, shoots twin projectiles out at the touch of a button!

December sees the long awaited release of the remake of King Kong from director Peter Jackson. In celebration of this classic re-release, there is a range of figurines and accessories. Action characters from the sci-fi spectacular, Fantastic Four, will also abound this holiday season. Not to be outdone, Spiderman is rocking and in huge demand. Items like the Mega Blast Web Shooter and the Bump and Go Spiderman Bike will readily available too for Christmas stocking stuffers.

Educational

Education is essential for all and making education and discovery fun for all young minds is the core ideal of COG and Ein-O-Science and their products. The Dig-Up Dino Sets reflect mega core sample tubes, including a full fossil specimen, bone replicas, prehistoric landscape posters and assembly instructions. An assortment of Ein-O-Science Box Kits contain elements to discover natural properties, chemistry, crystals, electricity, electronic devices, the environment, basic body structures and plant biology.

The exciting new Meccano Speedplay range offers an Interactive Robot, a phenomenal T-Rex dinosaur, a Helicopter and a Motorbike for construction. The Interactive Robot has even further bonuses that can be downloaded from the internet that enhances the mechanics. Electronic features, sound effects and robotic movements like forward, backwards, left and right are easily accessed and incorporated into this dynamic, futuristic model! For youngsters over the age of seven, the new sets are easier and faster to build with the new parts being compatible with the existing Meccano range. Included in the bigger sets is a revolutionary drill for the engineers perusal, which becomes the motor for the model being constructed!

Brainy babies

Barney the purple dinosaur that kids love and that parents would rather see less of, is still the favourite amongst the littlies with a Barney toothbrush with a fun 'Brush our Teeth' jingle and the 'classic' "I Love You" song.

Then there is the new no mess AquaDoodle magic pens with water, with colour that disappears when messed.

Then there are various baby interactive toys very young ones, including videos from Brainy Baby which has created a video series for children aged six months to five years. Brainy Baby videos includes 45 minutes of educational and entertaining real-life images and music. It was the international Parenting Magazine's Top Video of the Year Award. Give your little one the advantage and be one step ahead of the others