Boing! Toy Shop

The kids LOVED the gifts I bought at your store. I ONLY buy toys at your store. I love JP, and if we do not patronize local places like Boing, then our neighborhood will turn into a place with only real estate offices & banks. Boring!! I hate Amazon & will continue my boycott of them. Your store is wonderful! 🩷

So happy to have this awesome toy store in JP! It has passed to its 3rd owner now and it is still a perfect place to buy all of the best toys in the JP area. What a wonderful addition to my home town!

The team is so knowledgeable and helpful. I needed ideas for gifts for children of two different ages and I spoke with them on the phone and they put a number of wonderful options aside. For its relatively small (manageable!) space, Boing has an incredible variety of toys for many ages. Yet it feels spacious and it's easy to find what you are looking for or see what is available. Everything is super high quality and appealing. It took willpower to restrain myself from buying many more items.

A really nice toy store with fun and creative toys and games for kids! I was impressed by the educational section,with tons of creative and engineering kits. There is also a small selection of Lego. The store also has some cool board games, including the Exit escape room games Recommended for kids young and old!

The staff is very friendly and helpful. They have a nice small selection of books for children. And they offer a discount for teachers.

My favorite toy store! The store clerks are always SO nice and helpful, it genuinely is always a great shopping experience and I’ve never failed to find a quality toy for my son. Also, their points system is great I’m always getting coupons!

Came in to take advantage of the end of summer sale and stock up for the Christmas and birthday gifts for my nephew. They had so many things I wanted to get but I only bought half of them! The staff were very helpful in finding appropriate things and made some great suggestions. Thanks!

I always get great advice for birthday gifts for my own kids as well as their friends’ birthdays here. They have a lot of educational toys, which I like, and all the other things too in that little shop.

Oh what a wonderful place this is! It's a true gem in JP and the whole city of Boston, really. The selection is terrific- for a small footprint they're packed with toys for infants through adults, from bath toys to books to art and science kits, Lego, puzzles, games, dress-ups, sports activities, just allllllll the things. The front displays are so well done and the space is really inviting. There's a bathroom with changing table that is family friendly and means if you're in JP with kids you have a place to "stop and go right away" (a little Daniel Tiger reference for the parents). They gift wrap and sell balloons, so it is THE spot for birthdays and holidays. If you become a member, you get sweet discounts, and the 5th Sunday of the month also has special bonuses. Best of all, there's a sign in the window with 2 different names on it every day, and if one of those names is yours, big prize! Even if we aren't planning a trip to Boing, it's always a treat to check the names. The people who work at this store are friendly and really knowledgeable. You go in and say "I need to get a 7yo girl a $15 gift and she's into horses" and you've got 3 options off the bat. I've never had a gift from Boing go wrong, but even if it did, they do gift receipts! After Halloween, you can also donate candy and get credit to use in the store- perfect for kids who are allergic to half their candy and otherwise feel pretty glum with their trick or treat haul. Definitely worth a visit to shop or browse, there's something fun for everyone!

What an awesome shop to have in town, especially during the dark days of COVID, when they would actually, wait for it, DELIVER TOYS AND GAMES to local addresses with a minimum purchase. What a lifesaver for my family and me. I love how they also separate their toys into sections, such as "science" and "crafts" which helps me select gifts for who I am buying for. They also do a free giftwrap service which is so handy. If all neighborhoods could be so lucky as to have a gem of a toy store such as this one, we would all be in a better place. Please, do try this place out. Make the effort to shop here, shop locally, get your gifts wrapped, and then walk next door to the Post Office and grab a flat-rate box and ship it off to a friend instead of using Amazon! Or save a box from your own shipments and re-ship your purchases from this store to your friends and family outside of Boston. I'm certainly not against Amazon, but if I have a wonderful option in my own town, I always make every effort to find what I can at the local store, ALWAYS! I encourage others to do so too! Stores like these who have braved COVID, and braved the tough competition out there deserve our attention and business! Visit Boing! and maybe even make it a tradition with grandkids!

Great toys and great service. A very very special store that has something for everyone. Even adults.

Great toy store, excellent service, wonderful suggestions. I bought some books on their recommendation for a 1.5-year-old about a year ago, and they're STILL her favorites, I'm told. I only wish that their site allowed for customer reviews. Oh, and if you want to know the book titles, one was Harold and the Purple Crayon, and the other was some kind of touchy-feely book about a cat: a patch of "fur" on one page with instructions to pet it, that kind of thing. Can't remember the name, but it was a big hit! Thanks, Boing: you always come through for me. I say we all need to starve Amazon as much as possible. Support local businesses like Boing!

I have no idea why this store gets good reviews. When I went in looking for items for my new grandson, there were two saleswoman talking together. There were no other customers. I was not greeted, nor did either woman ask me if I needed help. I looked all around the store, trying to find something to bring to the grandson I was going to see after four months' of waiting during Covid. I was not at all impressed with the selection. And I was very unimpressed that I seemed to be invisible to the staff. Though I would love to shop locally, I'll order items from Amazon or go to T.J.Maxx in the future.

Love their selection of toys and gift options and the staff is so helpful and friendly. This local toy store is a real gem in JP!

I really like Boing. Their displays are very vivid and always inviting. I love their selection of LEGO and Playmobil, and I like that there is a separate section for babies (makes my gift hunt easier). Boing is independent, and has a lot of very fun educational toy kits (like messy/gross science kits), quality/long-lasting toys, board/card games, craft kits (like sun-activated photo paper) and outdoor toys. During Halloween season, Boing is so much fun to visit, even if you're not shopping for kids. A lot of their accessories can be used to accent a grown-up-sized person! Their play putty isn't always the freshest; I've bought several different kinds of high-end play putty and had it be dried out inside. Sometimes, little hands will bend boxes and crack delicate plastic packaging, but you know, it's a toy store. Where little kids often shop. I anticipate that if I had noticed right away and come back in to exchange the putty, they would have been helpful to me, but as it was, I bought it nearly two months before Christmas, and that seems way longer than a typical exchange grace period. I stop in at least once a month. There are so many kids in my life who I have to buy things for! (And one big kid...ME!)

I have been a long time patron of Boing Toy store. More recently, I've been disappointed with their selection of books, especially with regards to the matter of multi race/ethnic representation. I went in on one occasion looking for a book for with an Asian main character. There was not a single children's book featuring an Asian character or family. The owner did recommend that I purchase a board book about Sushi because Asian food and people are interchangeable, apparently. Today I went in and looked for a book about the challenges of welcoming a new sibling to the family. While there were several books from which to choose, each was told from the perspective of a white character. I'd hoped that the little brown boy, for whom I was shopping, might have a story with imagery that reflected his own family but no such luck. Oh well....if you're looking for me I'll be book shopping at Henry the Bear in Brookline! I'm all set Boing.

What do you do when a birthday party invitation says, "No gifts please," and you're the only person who shows up without a gift? You quietly abscond from the party and get over to Boing! JP's Toy Shop to find that birthday girl a gift, STAT! That happened. As much as it felt weird not to take a gift to a birthday party, the invite clearly said "No gifts please." I consulted with Emily Post (who, for the record says: Gifts are expected for birthday and anniversary parties, but when honorees really don't want presents, their wishes should be respected) and went to the party empty-handed. Ugh! Big mistake. So, I left the party as quickly as I could, went to Boing! JP's Toy Shop, which thankfully was just around the corner, and found the perfect gift for a little girl who is currently going through a fairy phase. The staff wrapped it in no time flat and I quickly returned to the party with gift in hand. As it turns out, the birthday girl had obsessed over the butterfly fairy doll for months, but her mom never got around to buying it for her. The little girl played with the doll for the duration of the party. So I turned out to be a hero instead of a zero. Phew!

About a year ago I became an Aunt. Being an aunt is cool. You get all the good parts of a kid and none of the bad. She starts crying? Mom gets her back. She poops her diaper? Dad can handle that one. Hungry? College fund? Teenage angst? All on the parents. I just get to make googly faces at her and buy her awesome toys. As hostess of the 1 year birthday party I was determined to impress. I was planning on finding a toy store near my office but that didn't work out so well (where have all the toy stores gone??). I vaguely remembered a toy store on Centre street and decided that would have to do. It was a great idea. Boing had exactly what I wanted- a cherry red race car perfect for a young girl of 1. No gender stereotyping from her feminist Auntie! Boing is moving locations soon- I believe just down the block- so there might be some downtime- but if you are in the blessed position of being an Aunt or Uncle (or crazy enough to actually produce offspring) you are bound to find something perfect for the wee one here.

These guys rock!! I am so glad to buy local when it comes to these guys! They have a cool selection of eclectic toys, a very friendly staff and free wrapping! While they are a little pricier than Target or Toys 'R Us, they're local and good people! One time I walked in wearing a Met hat, the owner/manager asked if I was a Met fan, I told her I was (embarrassingly so b/c the Mets suck) and she said, "wait right here" she goes into her stock room and comes out with a hardcover book titled, "101 Reasons the Mets are Great" or something to that effect. She told me that the distributor sent her tons of these books when she ordered Red Sox books and gave it to me! It was so nice and thoughtful of her! Anyway, I have nothing but good things to say about Boing! In JP! Go there!!

Love the store. I get lost in the store admiring what they have all the time. I can always find something cool for kids of any age all the time. I have Amazon prime but there is something about seeing the actual toy in the store. I love the low key store ambience (not pushy, leaves you alone to browse).

I can always find a wonderful (and often unique) gift for my 7 nieces and nephews at this great shop.. so glad to have a fantastic toy store in JP! and honestly - they are so not overpriced compared to most small toy stores.. it amazes me..

a great toy store with a good variety of differnt toys and books. The owner was extremely helpful and friendly. A must

Boing employees really helped us out this weekend by blowing up a bunch of mylar balloons that we brought in for my daughter's bday. Given how busy they were helping other customers, they could (and perhaps should!) have turned us away, but they didn't. Five star service!

This is a cool small independent toy store--not as exciting as Stellabella but definitely worth checking out. They have good quality games and toys and a friendly, helpful staff.

Love their selection and ability to play with toys before buying. They wrap toys if given for presents, so helpful! Staff is always kind and available for questions.

Such a cute shop. I enjoy wandering around here and the selection is great. Unfortunately, the staff were not very friendly (didn't greet us or offer help), and struggled to redeem a gift certificate. Otherwise a good experience.

I think they had a nice selection of toys. Some of the toys were out of the box, so we were able to play with the Broder Garbage truck before buying it. The owner was friendly and helpful. We earned $10 in rewards points from our first purchase. I was very happy.

Very nice store. I don't have kids, so I really needed help picking out a b-day gift for my niece. The staff was very helpful in showing me all the options. It was very stuffy in the store though and I couldn't wait to get out of there...

Great advice for age-appropriate toys & books. Courteous clerks went extra mile finding a chair for this disabled customer so I could sit while winnowing through a selection of books. Both items gift-wrapped and be-ribboned -- for free! -- and price-tags thoughtfully removed prior to wrapping. Prepare to spend more time than you'd initially planned, as your inner child will be tempted to try out their puppets! or trains! before alighting back to earth and focussing once more on the actual kid you're shopping for.

A wonderful employee named Marshay (sp?) helped me find a terrific treat for my infant son. He took time to show us different options and asked questions about our little guy and made thoughtful suggestions. Great store and looking forward to returning!

Really great toy store. They have all the interesting stuff and none of the crap that usually takes up the bulk of space in most toy stores. The service is great, too. I don't have kids, so when I need to buy a gift for a child, I'm perfectly happy to go in saying, "Uh. I know a kid who likes transportation, and he's turning 5. Whatchoo got for $20?" They are very receptive to that kind of thing. Their Santa at Christmas was really great, too! I'd give it a 5 if it were a wee bit cheaper.

Awesome store to buy stuff for kids. Very helpful staff. I wished I lived closed to it!

This is a great little toy store in the heart of jp. A great distraction for our two year old. But it can be a little pricey

Awesome neighborhood toy store..screw toys r us, amazon, wall mart, target and any other big faceless, no character shop. These guys are well priced and deal only in super cool toys. My toddler loves this place. Prices are very good, shelves are stocked, and they have a great selection of the not so plastic toys. 5 Stars all the way

this place is wonderful. they have a great selection of board games, crafts, games for toddlers, and kids for all ages. this is definitely my go-to place for kids of all ages, from 1 to 71.

As a mother of a 6 year old and long time resident of JP - I was thrilled when Boing opened several years ago. Unfortunately, the quality of the store has gone down considerably and now is so under-inventoried it's downright depressing to go in there! Indeed, the prices are astronomical and the selection anemic - at least they gift wrap for free which we ALWAYS take advantage of! I want my "old" Boing back!!!

Prompt, helpful, and KNOWLEDGEABLE customer service - a broad selection for all ages - free gift wrapping - and a play area at the back. What else could you need?

As the Aunt of 7 little ones Boing has become my last minute gift shopping savior. I always can find something for the kids and each gift purchased here is always a hit. You won't find horrible kids toys like the bratz dolls or other such things. Every toy they sell is appropriate for children and really fun. The best part...they will wrap each gift for you. Their prices may be a bit more expensive than a chain store however the customer service and gift selection are worth it.

Quality toys, no Barbie/character crap...what could be harder to find? As a teacher I love the developmental, interactive toys. Please continue to support this local store!