re: #121 Vicious Babushka

Can anyone suggest inexpensive gifts for my Canadian grandsons, ages 10, 11, 12. NO ELECTRONICS. (I realize that limits the field significantly)

Last year I got them sports equipment, baseball gloves, bats & basketball.

Don’t know if their mom would approve skates & hockey sticks.

How about some mind exercise then?

Classic board games? Chess, Backgammon, etc. Perhaps a well made travel set?

Classic novels? Last of the Mohicans, Kidnapped, Treasure Island, LotR if they haven’t already read it, any of the Heinlein juveniles from the 1950’s, etc

History text - depending on their reading skills, Barbara Tuchmann’s books such as “The Guns of August” with the 100 year anniversary of WWI soon or the “A Distant Mirror” on the 14th Century in England and France are delightful and reasonably easy reading while still being intellectually rigorous.