True audiophiles might scoff, but I love to buy plug-and-play suitcase turntables for young kids—dropping the needle is such a tactile pleasure, and what happens next can feel almost otherworldly, a kind of conjuring. Secondhand stores are often loaded with old children’s records; keep an eye out for anything released by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, which issued dozens of surprisingly sophisticated kid-friendly LPs in the nineteen-fifties and sixties, by artists such as Ella Jenkins, Pete Seeger, and Woody Guthrie. For the player, there are lots of brands to choose from; to my ears, they all sound about the same (tinny, yet triumphant). Crosley makes them in a variety of bright colors perfect for a kid’s chaotic quarters. (My four-year-old has a Crosley Cruiser Plus in a shade called “tye-dye”; on weekend mornings, she likes to play the Buck Owens song “I’ve Got a Tiger by the Tail” as many times as she can before I finally come staggering in.)