The 27 Best Gifts for 9-Year-Olds

Illustoria and Kazoo are beautifully produced print magazines that invite young readers to revisit their arresting pages over and over again. Illustoria (a collaboration between McSweeney’s and The International Alliance of Youth Writing Centers) is a visual feast, with a focus on storytelling through art and literature. In addition to crafts and art projects, Illustoria presents stories through comics and profiles illustrators, artists, and makers.

The cover of the award-winning Kazoo trumpets that it’s “a magazine for girls.” This strikes us as unnecessarily prescriptive, since themes like “Steampunk” and “Magnificent Mistakes”—as well as delightful stories, project ideas, and activities—could appeal to young readers of any gender. (We used to also recommend Bravery, which is devoted to female role models, but it is no longer publishing new issues; you may be able to find it in a local library.) These publications are bursting with creative ideas and inspiration, and they weave messages of compassion and inclusivity into their content.

—Winnie Yang

Woven potholders are a classic craft, and they haven’t changed much across generations. I made this type of practical cotton craft when I was in grade school, and both of my boys have brought them home from summer camp or afterschool programs. New Hampshire company Friendly Loom makes an especially nice do-it-yourself kit. The frame is a sturdy green metal; the loops, made from recycled cotton, come in 12 bright colors. You use a long metal weaving hook to thread the loops across the grid, and there’s a smaller crochet hook to finish off the edges (here’s a helpful YouTube tutorial). One box comes with the supplies to make two small potholders, though you can buy refill bags with enough loops to make six more (and keep going from there). Friendly Loom also has a kit to make a larger, 10-inch potholder, which is likely a better size if you plan to use these to move things in and out of your oven. This gift may be kids, but I like that it also gives them an opportunity to be a gift-giver and to feel satisfied with their effort as well as their generosity.

—Kalee Thompson

You know what’s better than poop and pee jokes? True facts about them. Wow in the World: The How and Why of the Human Body is a non-fiction graphic novel-style book that explains the ins and outs of the human body. Recommended in our guide to puberty, it’s packed with random yet essential information: how and why pimples form, why there’s hair in your nose, the body parts you don’t need, what the color of your pee means, the different kinds of poop your body can make. Did you know some turtles breathe out of their butts? We didn’t either.

—Ellen Lee

Kids under 15 should be granted free admission to national parks and federal recreation sites, and fourth-grade students can get a free pass for themselves and their families through the Every Kid Outdoors initiative. That year of free admission can be a nice impetus to planning various outdoor adventures, whether it’s an ambitious family journey or a local day trip. The individual passport is a fun add-on for kids. The little booklet is divided by region, with space for cancellations and stamps collected along the way. For those who are predisposed to collecting, the passport may help serve as motivation for planning even more park visits. And the booklet ultimately serves as both memento and diary, which just may start a habit of documenting a lifetime of exploration.

And note: If a child or other family member has a disability, they are eligible for a special access pass that grants them (and anyone else in the car) free lifetime admission to over 2,000 national parks. Keep in mind that the pass needs to be applied for weeks, if not months, in advance of the visit. Additionally, there are many excellent blogs and guides focused on accessible travel (the Statue of Liberty often tops disabled travelers’ lists of national parks with good accessibility options). These guides are also handy if you plan to travel with aging grandparents.

—Winnie Yang

Even older kids appreciate next-level cuddling. Soft, squishy, and infinitely huggable, these plush animals deliver on snuggles. We fell for King Leo the Lion, which was part of an earlier series and is now sold out. But there are more characters to choose from in the more-recent series, such as Ana the Pineapple, a cute octopus, and Nebula the Unicorn. Plump and inviting, Moosh-Moosh plush buddies are comforting companions for, say, watching a movie on the couch. But they’re also wonderful at bedtime. My kid was delighted that he could use his new friend as a small, cushiony pillow.

—Ingrid Skjong

I’ve battled with anxiety and nervous habits, like nail-biting, since childhood. My children inherited some of these behaviors. We’ve tried fidget spinners and pops to cope, but they were too distracting. I’ve found these fidget rings to be discreet, practical, and fashionable. Each ring in this set of three is handmade with an adjustable 18-gauge wire band of either gold, silver, rose gold, copper, antique copper, or bronze. Five colorful, 3-millimeter beads are looped on the wire. Bonus: They don’t make any noise and can adjust to feel comfortable on most finger sizes. For a different style, this custom 3D-printed fidget ring spins smoothly and quickly (I’ve found it helpful in an absent-minded or reflective movement). But it’s pricier, bulkier, and made of plastic.

—A. Rochaun Meadows-Fernandez

When it comes to board games, the creative, innovative options are practically endless. And Wirecutter has multiple detailed guides to help you navigate them, including our guide to the best board games and board games we love for kids and families. But sometimes, nothing hits the spot like a tried-and-true classic. Trivial Pursuit Family Edition, for one, has managed to pass my household’s ultimate test: the tri-generation game night. Like the original version, this edition requires players to travel around the board, answering questions on a variety of topics and earning different-color pie pieces along the way. But the Family Edition has made some clever, peace-keeping tweaks. There are two decks of question cards, one for adults and one for kids, with corresponding levels of difficulty. (Don’t worry: The junior questions aren’t total giveaways.) And the rules have been adjusted to speed up and shorten the proceedings, resulting in less interminable rolling, fewer sagging moments, and—in our experience—more chipper attitudes (across all ages) when the winner is crowned.

—Ingela Ratledge Amundson

Young puzzle lovers are likely to be delighted by Shutterfly’s personalized jigsaw puzzles. Shutterfly will print any digital photo on a high-quality board. The 252-piece version seems particularly fitting for a budding puzzle aficionado (the puzzles come in four sizes, including a 1,014-piece challenge for serious jigsaw showdowns). You can squeeze up to 17 different photos into one puzzle, and you may choose from dozens of templates and frames to get just the look you’re after. I gave my parents one of these a few years ago, using a group photo of our extended family. They were only mildly interested, but my nieces and nephews could hardly wait to piece together and disassemble their family’s faces every time we reunited.

—Caitlin Giddings

Inspired by shows like the Food Network’s Kids Baking Championship, my kids and their friends like to get together and challenge one another to bake-offs and cook-offs. (The best part? I often get to be the judge.) Wirecutter has tons of recommendations for the best baking gear, the best holiday cookie-baking equipment, and the best tools for cooking with kids, but for an aspiring kid baker, a few particular items caught our eye. Among the holiday-themed cookie cutters we tested, those in the Ateco Plain Edge Snowflake Cutter Set were the sturdiest, and they created the most well-defined cookie shapes. Kids who want to level up their cookie- and cake-decorating skills will appreciate the Ateco 14-Piece Cake Decorating Set, which has sturdy, reliable tips for making stars, rosettes, and other accents. Kids can also imbue their creations with brilliant color, using the AmeriColor Student Soft Gel Paste Food Color Kit. This food coloring is much more concentrated than the liquidy kind sold at grocery stores, so it lasts longer and produces more-vibrant hues, including a true red. (If you’re concerned about red food dye, this food-based India Tree Nature’s Colors Decorating Set is a good alternative.)

—Ellen Lee

Many 9-year-olds are ready to make breakfast on their own—for themselves or even the entire family. The easy-to-use Dash Mini Waffle Maker invites them to prepare small, yummy waffles one at a time. This little appliance, which is among our favorite kitchen tools for kids, is available in several styles. So your kid can make waffles in the standard criss-cross pattern as well as in the shape of a heart or with a pineapple imprint. Bonus: Cleaning is easy with a wipedown.

—Ellen Lee

Kingdomino, a novel take on dominoes, is a fun strategy game for kids to play with friends or at a family game night. (It’s a favorite in Wirecutter’s guide to the best board games for kids.) Players select tiles that show different terrains (water, forest, fields) and align them to create a kingdom grid. The rules are few and fairly simple: A tile must connect to another tile with the same terrain type, and the grid must remain a certain size. But the quick pace, the dynamic game structure (the order in which players select new tiles constantly changes), and the need for complex decision-making make this game a challenging puzzle.

—Courtney Schley

Blokus is a puzzle-like geometric board game for two to four players, and it’s easy to understand (there’s only one rule). It starts off simple but gets devilishly more difficult after the first few moves, so it’s a great activity for 9-year-olds who relish game-based challenges. Players must set their Tetris-shaped pieces adjacent to—but not touching any sides of—another piece of the same color on a large gridded board. (The pieces can touch the sides of other colors, however.) Blokus gets increasingly challenging as the board fills with red, blue, green, and yellow tiles, and players try to trap one another in corners. After the first few games, my daughter learned to plan ahead strategically so she could squeeze in the last remaining pieces for a well-earned victory. Lisa Regalla, former head of onsite and digital experiences at the Bay Area Discovery Museum, in Sausalito, California, recommended Blokus to us. Regalla said this is a fun game that also helps develop spatial reasoning skills, though it may not be appropriate for kids who get easily frustrated while handling tiny pieces.

—Ellen Lee

The Presto PopLite machine, which has been among the most-used appliances in my kitchen for the past several years, was not originally purchased as a gift for a third-grader. I initially bought this as a high school graduation gift, thinking it would make a fun dorm-room extra. When it suffered a severe (and rare!) shipping delay, I instead added it to the pile of presents for my family’s holiday Yankee swap. Then my own kid messed up the adult/kid Yankee swap gift ratio by stealing the popper away during a heated final round. It’s hard to imagine that anyone else could love it more. My son, now 9, can make his own fluffy, buttered popcorn after school with little mess and no risk of burning. (Wirecutter’s own popcorn experts have declared it one of the best ways to make popcorn.) You do need to be sure not to overload this machine, and I’ve found that it’s more effective to just melt your butter in the microwave, versus using the little plastic cup. When friends come over for movie night, we pour on the butter and fill up these retro popcorn boxes.

—Kalee Thompson

The only problem with Lego’s versatile 3-in-1 sets is that many kids—my child among them—may not want to take apart their creation to make a new one. That said, the fun, animal-inspired possibilities in this Lego Creator 3in1 Birdhouse may be so appealing that kids won’t be able to resist building, tearing down, and building again. One of our favorite Lego sets for kids, it can be made into a birdhouse with six little birds, a beehive with bees and a honeycomb, or a park bench for a squirrel and hedgehog.

—Ellen Lee

A gorgeous strategy game that encourages environmental consciousness, Planet lets kids build a thriving ecosystem from a blank slate—a 12-sided, three-dimensional one. Players take turns adding magnetic tiles of terrain (forests, oceans, mountains) to their planet. Based on their terrain, they also compete to collect animal cards. The player who has the most desert terrain, for instance, wins the snake card. “It gets you thinking about the animals and their habitats,” said Brian Mayer, a gaming, learning, and library specialist in New York, who recommended the game. It’s also featured in our guide to board games for kids.

—Ellen Lee

Nine-year-olds may already have a favorite athletic activity, whether it’s baseball, soccer, or dance. But don’t underestimate the low-key group fun of tossing around a flying disc. Kids don’t need any extra equipment to play, and the game is as enjoyable with one friend as with 10. You may already have a Frisbee (or several), but we think it’s worth spending a little more to get a disc that tosses and glides with ease. The Nite Ize Flashflight is a favorite because it balances itself in flight and lights up with seemingly indestructible LED lights. The latter feature lets kids keep playing even in winter, when days end early, as well as on warm summer nights. After some 30 hours researching and testing, we also found the Discraft Ultra-Star 175 to be an excellent, smooth-flying disc (and it’s one of our favorite beach and pool toys).

—Courtney Schley

I had my doubts about Throw Throw Burrito. (What? You pelt foam burritos at each other?) But even the biggest skeptics among us may dissolve into laughter when confronted with this quirky card game—because, really, why wouldn’t you want to ruthlessly pummel someone with a squishy fake burrito? The aim of the game (which is best played outside, where there’s no risk of breaking a glass with an errant toss) is to swap cards until you find a match or play a burrito card, leading to a back-to-back “burrito duel” or an all-out “burrito war.” Sharp reflexes are a must.

—Ellen Lee

My son’s pajama game is pretty on point. Eager to follow in the slippered footsteps of his dad (who, ridiculously and semi-adorably, has amassed a sleepwear collection worthy of a sultan), our kid has developed a real taste for high-quality PJs. But until we found the Petite Plume Flannel Robe with Piping, he was still figuring out where bathrobes might fit into the mix. (He liked them in theory but found them bulky, hot, and annoying in practice.) The flannel of this cotton robe is on the thinner side, so it serves as a pleasant second layer without providing too much actual warmth. It ties easily and usually stays closed. And as is true of other Petite Plume items (our family has multiple pairs of its button-down PJ sets, in adult and kid versions), this robe’s fabric and construction are excellent and look like a million [insert the foreign currency of your choice here, to feel fancier]. The robe is available in several colors, such as green gingham, navy, and white; depending on the color, it comes in sizes from 6 months through 14 years. It can be monogrammed (and why not?) for an additional $10.

—Ingela Ratledge Amundson

My daughter’s favorite birthday gift when she turned 9 was this elaborate set of acrylic paints, which comes with 60 tubes of vibrant colors—plenty for any budding artist. These paints dry quickly, and they can be used on wood and glass, in addition to paper and canvas (my daughter painted an old Mason jar to hold knickknacks). They come in handy for school projects as well as for ones that are just for fun. The paints feel more grown-up and professional than my daughter’s previous set of generic art supplies. So I hope this set will inspire her to continue to explore her interest in art.

—Ellen Lee

As kids get older and want to move on from steady starter scooters, the two-wheel Micro Sprite allows them to show off their stuff. This scooter lets them ride faster, jump curbs, and spin around, and it maintains the high quality and durability of Micro’s three-wheel scooters, including the Micro Maxi (both are picks in our guide to the best kids scooters). The Sprite has a light frame—it weighs just 5.9 pounds—but it can hold up to 220 pounds. Its adjustable handlebar extends from 22 inches up to 34 inches from the deck, plus it’s foldable, comes with a kickstand, and is available in a selection of colors with and without LED wheels.

—Kate Gammon

After taking an introductory sewing class, my daughter was so inspired that she asked for a sewing machine of her own. For learners like her, we recommend the Brother CS7000X, the top pick in Wirecutter’s guide to the best sewing machines. This machine can handle a variety of fabrics and stitch them evenly. It also comes with plenty of speeds and specialized features (like presser feet), which beginners can use as they become more skilled and comfortable with the machine. If you don’t have a built-in mentor among your family or friends, consider including a sewing class or lessons (your local sewing-supply store likely offers both) to help kids get started, says DePaul University’s Conklin. “It sets them on a path to do more stuff on their own.”

—Ellen Lee

On family movie nights, my son and I used to be in constant competition over who would be the first to claim the best throw blanket in the house—a fuzzy mauve monstrosity (which we bought ages ago at Anthropologie) that looks as if it’s made from the pelts of Muppets. But ever since he got his very own Bearaby Nappling Weighted Blanket, I’ve been nursing a serious case of blanket envy from my end of the sofa. A scaled-down, kid-size version of a pick in our guide to the best weighted blankets, the Nappling comes in several colors and two weights (6 pounds and 8 pounds). (The rule of thumb is that a weighted blanket should be about 10% of your child’s body weight, but if your kid is under 5 years old or weighs less than 50 pounds, for safety reasons we recommend going with the Sommerfly Sleep Tight Weighted Blanket instead.) The Nappling is made from loosely woven organic cotton that feels cool to the touch and, yes, heavy—but reassuringly so, not in a panic-inducing way. (I know this from all the naps I’ve taken beneath it while my son was at school.) Most kids over the age of 7 should be okay to sleep with a weighted blanket through the night (my son does).

—Ingela Ratledge Amundson

—Additional reporting by Julie Kim. This article was edited by Kalee Thompson.