Crafty Madeline.

• Position: What's new? Holiday gifts galore - Craft kits for kids - Brief Article

For more than a quarter-century, the Creativity for Kids line, from Faber-Castell USA, Cleveland, Ohio, has been providing some of the very best and most-innovative activity kits for children. That tradition continues with six new Madeline arts and crafts kits, all centered around the little French schoolgirl of literary and Disney TV fame. The instructions to each kit include a charming introductory poem and some French words so children can learn how to say garden, moon, girl, house, and thank you, among others.

That dialogue should come in handy when the kids put on plays with Puppets de Paris: Magnetic Puppet Theatre ($14.95). Using markers, youngsters will delight in coloring in the background scenes and the puppet figures themselves (who stand sturdy in foam bases). Magnet wands move the figures around as stories are acted out.

Other kits include Tres Jolie...