Text Leveling System

Toys!

RDQ:	1966	Max Word/Sent	37	Total Words	1952		Diff Words	718
Lex	890	Ave Word/.Sent	12	Hi Freq occurs	1278	65.5%	Hi freq	257	35.8%
AR	4.9	Long Sentences	13.9	Low Freq occurs	165	8.5%	Low freq	131	18.2%

Introduction
Play-Doh began as a product for cleaning wallpaper. The seesaw was first used as a prop in the bloody spectacle in the arenas of ancient Rome. Long ago there were kites so large that people could be flown on them. Behind every toy there is a story.
But some toys have far stranger stories than others. Only those toys that had the most surprising and unbelievable origins are found in this book.
Even though we know generally where and when a given toy was made, the chapters of this book are not in chronological order because there are all sorts of ways in which toys and their histories overlap. For example, tops have been around much longer than today's action figures-but action figures are a type of doll, and dolls were invented thousands of years before tops. So, really,
there is no way to put the history of toys into a simplified order.
In 1976, a time capsule was buried in Washington, D.C. Inside the capsule are dozens of toys from the last century. In 2076, exactly one hundred years later, it will be opened. People then will marvel at the wonderful jumble of toys and see how we lived, how we dressed, and what we believed. Just as we are now, they will be amused and surprised by the toys they find, and from them, try to better understand the past.
The slinky
It was a mistake. A goof-up. An invention that didn't work. A flop; that's what the Slinky was, at least in the beginning.
In 1945, an engineer by the name of Richard James was hard at work in a Philadelphia shipyard. The U.S. Navy had hired him to invent a stabilizing device for its ships. When a ship is plowing through the waves
at sea, it pitches and plunges and rocks every which way. And its navigational instruments do, too. Richard's job was to come up with something that would counterbalance the instruments so that I lacy would be level at all times.
Springs. Richard believed that some sort of arrangement of springs would do the trick. He tried all different
types and sizes, and put them together in every conceivable way. For weeks he toiled, making dozens of different devices. But none of them worked. In fact, he never did come up with the item the Navy had hired him to invent.
But one day Richard accidentally knocked a large experimental spring off a shelf. It should have just plopped to the floor. Instead, it walked down. Crawled, really. Coil by coil, end over end, it descended onto a stack of books ... then down to a desktop ... down to
a chair ... and from there to the floor, where it gathered itself back together.
He tried it again and again. Each time, the same thing happened.
As soon as the workday was over, Richard hurried home. Fascinated with the strange spring, he showed his wife, Betty, what it could do. Together, they tried it out in all sorts of ways and in all sorts of places. It was especially good at walking down stairs.
A toy.
Richard didn't think of it that way. Betty did. She was the one who realized that what her husband had invented was a terrific toy. Betty was also the one who named it.
At first, all sorts of names came to mind, but none seemed quite right. For the next two days she thumbed through a dictionary, keeping a list of some of the best possibilities. Finally, she came upon what she believed was the perfect word to describe the toy: slinky.
Early the next year, Betty and Richard James borrowed $500 to have four hundred Slinkys made. They went from store to store, trying to get the owners to stock them. A few did. But despite Slinky's wonderful ability to walk, it didn't move off the shelves. Not a single one was bought.
Richard and Betty were discouraged but not about to give up. Slinky was a supertoy, they were sure. And it would sell-but people needed to be shown what it could do.
They went to the manager of a large department store named Gimbel's. It took a lot of talking-even a little begging!-but finally they convinced the manager to let them put on a demonstration. Fearing the worst, Richard slipped a dollar to a friend
to make sure at least one Slinky would be sold. It turned out, though, that he had no need to worry. Shoppers stared in amazement as the steel coil gracefully walked down a sloped board. Within ninety minutes, the entire stock of four hundred had been sold.
Before long, Richard and Betty were able to start their own company. Within a few
years, they were millionaires. As for Slinky, 250 million have been sold to date; Slinky's sales
are as strong today as ever. In the world of toys, Slinky still walks that walk, and shows no sign of ever slowing down.
The early Slinkys were made of blue-black Swedish steel. In the first year of production, this material was replaced with less expensive American metal. At $2 apiece, a Slinky costs only twice what it did fifty years ago.
There are about eighty feet of wire in a standard sized Slinky.
During the Vietnam War (early 1960s-1975) the Slinky reverted to its original role. First intended for the military, Slinky the toy ended up on the battlefield. Carried by radiomen in the jungles of Vietnam, Slinkys were tossed over high tree branches as makeshift antennas.
It takes approximately ten seconds to manufacture one Slinky.
Slinkys make good scarecrows. After seeds have
been planted, try hanging a Slinky on a nearby branch. With the slightest breeze, it'll dance around, and birds will stay away.
Slinky's most recent accomplishment was in outer space. Bunches have gone aboard space shuttles. The purpose: to test the effects of zero gravity on springs.
seesaw
Some inventions popped up in different parts of the world at different times-but nobody knows for sure where and when they first originated. One of these is the seesaw. The Polynesians, Egyptians, Germans, Greeks, and Chinese all had versions of the seesaw (or teetertotter, as it is also called).
The Romans were the first, however, to set down any written record of them. Seesaws, it seems, were used in ancient Roman circuses-which had very violent exhibitions. Boxing matches to
the death, crucifixions, military battles in which the soldiers actually killed each other these were all part of the Roman circus events. Almost every act was brutal, and that goes for their seesaw act as well.
Here's how it worked. In the middle of the arena a large seesaw was set up; at either end of the device was a basket big enough to hold a man. Two clowns were then shoved out into the arena. As fast as they could, they ran to the seesaw and hopped into the baskets just as a lion was set free from a cage. The lion, which hadn't been fed for days, charged the seesaw. When it came toward one of the clowns, he would push off the ground and up into the air. Then the animal would race toward the other clown in the basket on the ground. And that clown would immediately push off and shoot up, out of reach of the ravenous lion. Up and down they would go. The spectators thought this was great fun. For the clowns, however, it wasn't fun at all. Eventually, they began to tire. One would sadly end up as a basket of food for the lion.
The next time you're on a seesaw, you might want to think about how it was once used. And be glad you're just clowning around-and not a clown in the seesaw act at a Roman circus!
The longest that two people have seesawed is 820 hours. The record was set by Charles Ryan and Philip Duiett of Theodore High School, Theodore, Alabama, February 23
through March 28, 1976.
The original meaning of the word seesaw was "back and forth."
The original meaning of the word clown was "peasant."
The Great Depression of 1929 put people out of work all around the world. One such person was Ole Kirk Christiansen, who lived in the little town of Billund, Denmark. Mr. Christiansen was a carpenter, but unfortunately there was little work to be found. By 1932, he still did not have a steady job. To make ends meet, Christiansen began handcrafting such things as wooden ironing boards, stepladders, wheelbarrows, and toys. Then, with his wife and son, he would travel the countryside to sell his products to local farmers.
When the Depression finally started to ease up, most people returned to their old jobs. But Christiansen had become very skilled at crafting wooden toys, especially animal pull toys, and there was great demand for them. He realized that he could make more money creating

toys than he could building houses. Besides, he enjoyed the work more.
Having decided to go into the toy business full-time, Christiansen opened his own company. He combined two Danish words, leg godt, which means "play well," in naming his new company Lego. (Christiansen may not have known it, but lego is also a Latin word-and one with a very appropriate meaning. In Latin, lego means "I put together.")
When the Lego company opened its doors for business in 1932, no Legos were made there-for the simple reason that they hadn't been invented yet. At first, Christiansen and his employees made only wooden toys
such as dolls, blocks, hobbyhorses, and marionettes. After a year of operation, they began making plastic toys as well.
One day Christiansen whittled some clever new building blocks. What made them unique was that they interlocked. Kids would really like the blocks, he felt sure; but he knew it would be both difficult and expensive to mass-produce wooden ones. Right away, he realized the blocks could be produced much faster
and cheaper using plastic instead of wood. In 1949, Christiansen came out with what he called Automatic Binding Bricks. The sets were in two colors: red and white. As they do today, the blocks had studs on top, were hollow underneath, and could be easily stacked and locked together.
In Europe, the toy was a hit from the get-go. Soon, buyers were telling shopkeepers that they wanted more colors. Green, yellow, and blue blocks were added. At the suggestion of his son Godtfred, Ole renamed the product Lego Bricks-which eventually became just Legos.
Five years later, Ole and Godtfred improved their product. Tubes were added, which gave kids many new and
interesting ways to connect the blocks. In the original 1949 version, the bricks could only be stacked directly on top of one another. Now, two eight studded bricks could be joined in twenty-four different ways. Six eight-studded bricks could be combined in over a million ways!
By the end of the 1950s, Legos had become one of the most popular toys in Europe. But not until 1961 did the toy finally reach the United States. Why it took so long for the product to reach this country, no one really knows but by the early 1970s it was one of the best loved and best-selling items in America, too.
Presently, Legos are manufactured in hundreds of different sets. Some sets just contain the basics: building blocks and connecting tubes. Others come complete with a wide variety of
items for play, such as small cars, roadways, ramps, roofs, and even "city maps."
It's a whole little world unto itself, and-perhaps best of all-it's a world that you create.

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: No support

Dialog: Simple

Vocabulary: Many difficult words

Language: Many descriptive words

Sentences: Some Long/Complex

Text structure: Formal

Inferences: Several Implications

Complexity: Several unrelated ideas

Concepts: Concrete/Simple Social

Chapters

Headings

Mature concepts: With common experiences or clear fantasy

Features

Topic

Toys

Inventions/Inventors

*Entertainment & Fun

*Technology & Progress

Low Frequency Words

ability	aboard	accidentally	accomplishment	amazement
amused	antennas	apiece	appropriate	approximately
binding	borrowed	brutal	buyers	capsule
charged	chronological	conceivable	convinced	counterbalance
crafting	crucifixions	danish	demonstration	depression
descended	desktop	despite	discouraged	ease
effects	egyptians	employees	engineer	eventually
exhibitions	fascinated	figures	flown	generally
germans	godt	godtfred	gracefully	greeks
handcrafting	histories	hobbyhorses	hollow	immediately
improved	instruments	intended	interlocked	introduction
invention	inventions	ironing	jumble	jungles
lacy	latin	legos	level	makeshift
manager	manufacture	manufactured	marionettes	marvel
material	military	navigational	navy	ole
operation	original	originated	overlap	philadelphia
pitches	polynesians	possibilities	presently	produce
product	production	products	purpose	radiomen
ravenous	recent	renamed	reverted	richard's
roman	ryan	scarecrows	seesaw	seesawed
seesaws	shelves	shopkeepers	shoved	shown
simplified	slinky	sloped	stabilizing	stepladders
stock	studded	studs	suggestion	supertoy
swedish	teetertotter	terrific	thumbed	toiled
unbelievable	unfortunately	unique	unto	variety
vietnam	violent	wheelbarrows	whittled	workday