Childhood's End

"Sure, youngsters want this stuff (after all, they see it on television every day) and they find ways of playing with these toys, sometimes imaginatively abandoning the commercial back story of the characters.
"But the problem is that the fun built into the toy is mostly in receiving the latest Polly Pocket and adding it to a collection, rather than playing with it. Additive—if not addictive—desire is created and satisfied by these toy lines. They serve little positive purpose other than to teach children to be good consumers and want all the Dora the Explorer toys."

In The New York Times, Gary Cross expresses concern over the psychological, not just the physical, dangers of toys.