The Purrr-fect Ball Tower from Fisher-Price is a lilac cat with cords for whiskers, with a lime green spiral ramp under its head. Five balls belong to the tower: four coloured ones with a ridged, woolly texture, and a clear rattle ball with an orange fish inside.
The game is the same every time, and that is exactly why it works: put a ball in the cat's mouth, then follow it through the bends, down and out at the bottom. For a child of around a year that bit of cause and effect is a small discovery, and it may be repeated endlessly.
The balls are ridged, which makes them easy to grip with hands that are still clumsy, and the rattle ball makes itself heard as soon as it moves. Mattel gives the tower from 9 months.
A present for a first birthday, and the kind that stays out in the living room because a child goes back to it every day.
