*Toy Stories* is a collection of portraits that will bring you back to the days of your childhood when you would play for hours with your favorite toys. Italian photographer [Gabriele Galimberti](http://www.gabrielegalimberti.com/) traveled the world documenting children and their most prized possessions. He found that the toys say as much about the parents as they do about the children themselves. He saw that hopes and ambitions are passed down through the toys parents choose for their children. For example, musicians would give toy instruments to their child. However, this only applied when parents could afford to buy toys. In one small village in Zambia, where there was no running water or electricity, much less toy stores, the children found a box of sunglasses that fell off a truck and the sunglasses became their toys. They would play “market” by pretending to buy and sell the glasses to each other. Before the shoot, Galimberti would spend time with the children and their toys. He discovered that there were consistent differences in the relationship the children had with their toys clearly related to economic status. He says, “The richest children were more possessive. At the beginning, they wouldn’t want me to touch their toys, and I would need more time before they would let me play with them. In poor countries, it was much easier. Even if they only had two or three toys, they didn’t really care.” Here are some of the photographs of the children from *Toy Series.*
