Once upon a time in a land of code and creativity, there lived a young inventor named Zara. She wasn’t just any inventor—she was a Toy Keeper who loved collecting rare and amazing toys: a humming red car, a bouncing blue bunny, a giggling yellow robot…

But her collection was getting too big. She kept forgetting where she put what.

Then one sunny day, Zara’s wise friend, a talking squirrel named Nodey, gave her a gift — a super special treasure chest called a Map.

“This isn’t your regular chest,” whispered Nodey. “It’s smart. It lets you label each toy with a key. So when you want to find your toy later, you don’t dig — you ask.”

Zara’s eyes lit up. “Whoa! How do I use it?”

🗃️ Creating the Map

Zara began by making her own special chest:

const toyChest = new Map();

Now, she had a magic box that was empty but ready to hold wonderful things.

🔐 Putting Toys In with Secret Labels

Zara grabbed her red car and said:

toyChest.set('red car', 'my fast car toy');

Then she added more:

toyChest.set('blue bunny', 'my bouncy bunny')
        .set('yellow robot', 'my giggling robot');

The Map was happy. It remembered everything in the exact order Zara put them in.

🕵🏽‍♀️ Finding Toys by Their Labels

One day, she wanted to play with the bunny. She didn’t dig — she simply asked:

toyChest.get('blue bunny'); // ➡️ 'my bouncy bunny'

It popped right out!

🧐 Does It Exist?

Before calling for a toy, Zara checked if it was there:

toyChest.has('purple unicorn'); // ➡️ false

“Hmm, maybe I should get one,” she mumbled.

🗑️ Removing a Toy

When her red car lost a wheel, she removed it:

toyChest.delete('red car'); // ➡️ true

The Map gently let it go.

🧹 Cleaning the Chest

After a big toy sale, Zara wanted a clean start:

toyChest.clear();

Her chest was now empty, and toyChest.size said 0.

🔁 Looking at Everything

Later, Zara started building a toy museum. She added more toys and wanted to show each toy and its label. So she wrote:

for (let [label, toy] of toyChest) {
  console.log(`${label} ➡️ ${toy}`);
}

It displayed her collection beautifully in order!

🎓 The Big Lesson

Just like Zara’s treasure chest, a Map in JavaScript helps you store, find, check, and remove items, all using unique keys. It’s smarter than a regular object, because:

  • It remembers the insertion order
  • It allows any type of key, not just strings
  • And it’s great for storing paired data clearly

🧠 Practice Time — Can You Help Zara?

  1. Map Maker: Create a new Map called animalSounds. Add these pairs: 'dog' → 'woof', 'cat' → 'meow', 'cow' → 'moo'.

  2. Treasure Finder: What will animalSounds.get('cat') return?

  3. Key Checker: How can you check if 'sheep' is in the animalSounds Map?

  4. Clean-Up Duty: How do you remove 'dog' from the Map?

  5. The Toy Count: After removing 'dog', how many items are left in the Map?

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