Yesterday Once More: A Celebration of Vintage Toys

Yesterday Once More: A Celebration of Vintage Toys is a colorful, affectionate journey through the playthings that shaped childhood in mid-twentieth-century America.

Drawing on her memories of growing up in New York City during the 1950s and 1960s, Pam DuBois revisits the toys, games, television tie-ins, premiums, and neighborhood pastimes that defined a generation. From tin Ferris wheels, Marx toys, board games, jacks, spinning tops, and mechanical banks to Easy-Bake Ovens, Creepy Crawlers, Captain Kangaroo merchandise, cereal-box prizes, and dime-store treasures, each object opens the door to a story.

Part memoir, part social history, and part visual celebration, the book explores not only what children played with, but why those toys mattered. DuBois reflects on family, imagination, collecting, friendship, risk, disappointment, and the small moments that remain vivid decades later. Her personal recollections are paired with vivid images of vintage toys and memorabilia, creating a nostalgic record of a world before screens dominated childhood.

Warm, funny, candid, and richly illustrated, Yesterday Once More will appeal to baby boomers, collectors, pop-culture enthusiasts, and anyone who remembers when a simple toy could become the center of an entire afternoon.