Is there's a child in your life? Are you thinking about giving a microscope this holiday season? DO IT! But please think carefully about what you buy. You’re reading Microscopy Today, so you use some sort of microscope professionally; you may be tempted to give the youngster a lab-quality hand-me-down. DON’T! The complexities that you take for granted will only intimidate them. The youngest child will enjoy a magnifiying glass. I still remember the pocket-flashlight-style microscope that I had when I was young; I took it everywhere. After that, the best “first” microscope is a monocular dissecting scope; you can consider a very basic compound microscope later, in the middle school years.