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Most people don’t want to take the Christ out of Christmas. But one former Brooklynite wants God to share some space in the toy chest.
To do so, Kate Miller started Charlie’s Playhouse, which sells evolution toys and fills the black hole between the Noah’s Ark toys and dinosaurs.
“I was looking for toys for my kids,” said Miller, who now lives in Providence, R.I. “There were dinosaurs, but there was nothing that showed the history of life on Earth. So I had to start the company.”
Miller’s central product is an 18-foot-long, heavy-duty, creature-covered timeline (pictured, $49), a journey that spans 12 geologic epochs, six mass extinctions and 600 million years.
Charlie’s Playhouse — the company name is a reference to Darwin — also sells creature cards ($19) and T-shirts (“Product of Natural Selection” is the big seller).
The company is officially non-partisan, but Miller does blame “a small vocal minority” for “cowing the toy companies into not making evolution toys.”
“Kids learn by playing, so it does a terrible disservice to kids, to not have toys that teach evolution,” she said. “Toys like mine are a way to do that without being boring. I mean, look at Hallucigenia! It was a worm with 14 legs on the bottom and 14 spikes on the top!”
©2008 Community Newspaper Group
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