Toy Stories: photographic proof that childhood has been commodified

Fascinating images of children with their toys Pavel with his plastic guns, Mchinji and her dinosaur show that an epidemic of mass-produced play is spreading around the globe

Child's play: kids from Alaska to Zambia pose with their favourite toys in pictures

Looking at Gabriele Galimberti's photographs of children from a globetrotting project called Toy Stories feels like intruding on private worlds. Play is a realm of mystery and adventure. Toys come alive in a child's imagination. It's a brave or clumsy adult who crashes in on this rich reality. What are you playing? What's your favourite toy? What does it signify? Such adult questions, such adult photographs.

The children are posed like grownups in an ironic magazine spread about taste and yet what they are showing off is the stuff of childhood.