Things to Make and Do (1965)

When I was a child much of my entertainment was book and paper based.  Puzzles and games books were very popular and this one was my favourite - it gave me endless enjoyment.

I desperately wanted this toy theatre but was still too young to be able to make it with any dexterity.  I also wanted it to look exactly like this illustration but did not yet have the skill to replicate the pictures accurately and any concept of copying an illustration was the stuff of science fiction.

Although my parents gave me a wonderful array of toys and books to play with, the general idea at the time was that as children we would then entertain ourselves.  My parents had busy and active lives and we would never have thought to ask them to make something for us like this in the same way that I would spend hours constructing something for my son if he expressed any interest.  

There were a number of staples in these books.

Pages to decipher with pictures and numbers . . .
  

A maze was an absolute must (and there would have been more than one in the book) . . .

A page full of different types of puzzles . . .  

There were always pages where you had to spot the deliberate mistakes . . .

Pages where you had to find things . . .

And game ideas that could be taken outside . . .

Of course there were always pages of pictures to colour . . .

I think I was quite avant garde with this one, turning it into a sunset scene instead of the traditional sunny day!

All of these scans come from 'The Jack and Jill Book of Games and Puzzles', printed in 1965, described inside as 'the merriest book of the year!'