Boys love Beanie Boos, and the dinosaurs are the proof

There is a quiet assumption that plush toys are a girls' category. Nobody told the boys, and we watch the evidence walk through our range every week.

What boys reach for tells the story. The fiercer end of the Ty catalogue goes first: dinosaurs, dragons, sharks, anything with teeth or a tail built for swinging. Then the licensed characters, and Marvel is the heavyweight here. We stock Spider-Man in everything from a $6.99 clip to a large plush at $69.99, plus Miles Morales for the households loyal to a different Spider-Man. A boy choosing between six sizes of the same superhero is a boy taking a decision very seriously.

The Beanie Bouncers deserve special mention, because Ty solved the one design flaw plush has always had for boys: you are not supposed to throw it. A Bouncer is a plush you can throw. It costs $9.99 and we suspect the person who invented it had sons.

Then there is the collecting, which should surprise nobody. The instinct that fills albums with footy cards and binders with Pokemon works exactly the same way on a shelf of Boos. Ty prints an official name and birthday on every swing tag, which turns each character into a small data point, and collectors of a certain age are ferocious about data. Complete the dinosaurs. Find the one with your birthday. Trade the double at school.

And underneath all of it sits the reason that matters most. Boys need soft things too. A plush is a bedtime ally that asks no questions and tells no one, and plenty of parents tell us the tough kid's dinosaur quietly goes everywhere. That does not stop at any particular age, whatever anyone pretends. We have met grown men with a Boo on the desk.

If you are gift buying: a regular Boo at $11.99 suits a birthday, the Bouncer suits the kid who throws everything, and a large Spider-Man is a big-birthday centrepiece. Bring the boy in if you can, and watch how quickly the girls' aisle theory falls apart.