Knucklebones and Double Happys. Golliwogs and Tin canoes. Joy Toys and NuCraze, Marbles and Meccano. Lumve bears, Tonka trucks and Buzzy Bees. Hello Girls and Boys! tells the remarkable story of New Zealanders and their toys from M?ori voyagers to computer gamers.

David Veart's story is a big one about how our two peoples have made their fun on the far side of the ocean - Maori and Pakeha learning knucklebones from each other, young Aucklanders establishing the largest Meccano club in the world, Fun Ho! and Torro, Lincoln and Luvme establishing a successful local toy industry under the shade of import protection. But this is also a story about little things and little people - the Saxton family making a 'toy town' during their voyage to Nelson in 1843, young Maurice Gee building a canoe out of road tar and corrugated iron in 1940s Henderson, the author's father firing lead head nails at a nearby glasshouse with a giant shanghai. Just for fun.

Toys are fun. And, David Veart makes clear, they are also serious business. With his fine archaeological nose, Veart rustles through a few centuries of pocket knives and plastercine to take us deep into the childhoods of Aotearoa - under the eye of mum or running wild at the end of the orchard, with a doll in the hand or an arrow in the ear, memorising the rail lines of Britain or heading down to Newmarket to pickup a Modelair kitset. Hello Girls and Boys! is serious fun.