A Halloween night-time ride on an antique train is a three-lobster (i.e. excellent) attraction; so are creating felt landscapes at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, soaring aloft on Canada’s largest indoor ferris wheel, and feeding chickadees from your hand at Mountsberg Conservation Area.

The lobster-rating system (a nod to publisher Lobster Press) is just one of the low-key charms of this incredibly useful children’s guide to Toronto. (Lobster kids’ guides are also available for Montreal, Ottawa-Hull, Calgary, and Vancouver.) The sturdy paperback tucks easily into purse or knapsack and is designed with sprightly, readable simplicity. More than 150 attractions are listed, each with excellent transit and car directions, prices, hours, brief descriptions, cautionary tips (the Haida warship’s decks are slippery!), web sites, and icons denoting features like toilets and wheelchair/stroller accessibility.

The cultural and recreational treasures of Toronto and area, some relatively undiscovered, are so thoroughly and imaginatively explored that the guide almost made me long to be a young mother again.

Attractions are usefully grouped into 12 chapters under headings like Green Spaces, Places to Play, and Museums, not overlooking the neighbourhood delights of fire stations, kid-friendly restaurants, and swimming pools. At the back of the book, a 12-month calendar of events and a really inventive index with special sections for birthday parties and free family deals add to the book’s usefulness.

My one cavil with this indispensable guide is that it makes no mention of children’s bookstores, with their free readings and performance events, and it deals in cursory fashion with Toronto Public Libraries, not even mentioning the excellent summer reading club. Reading is an adventure too!