The LEGO® Ideas Book [Hardcover]

My son has been eagerly awaiting this book to be published. He is just 7 and has loads and loads of lego which is mainly second hand so lots of unusual bits that don't particularly go with a set he has. He is always looking for ideas of things to build and this book was brilliant for getting his imagination going. It doesn't have instructions but the pictures are very clear and it inspires you to use lego pieces in ways you would never have thought e.g skeleton legs as bannisters on stairs. It does make it clear in the book that you are unlikely to have all the pieces but encourages you to think about the lego you do have and how it can be used. He has had it two days and hasn't put it down yet. I can see how some people might be disappointed with this book, you do need a lot of lego to get the use from it perhaps but it is so much better than the Technic Lego Ideas book he also bought (not endorsed by Lego) which in my opinion is complete rubbish.

My son (like most people in the world?) loves Lego. He spends hours just building, being 9 it usually revolves around a house in the shape of a box, cars or guns. There is something tactile about the little bricks that just makes you want to pick them up and get going. I am not really a fan of the big ticket items (Star Wars etc) as it takes forever to build them and then that is it. What is needed is an Ideas book to take it to the next level with a couple of buckets of bricks......

When I first got the book I thought it would be along the lines of it telling you what you need to build a fire station (or whatever) and then you get Ikea-esque instructions. That would be ok, but it would be a bit like join the dots. What this book does is far better. It just shows you pictures with some very nice narrative. Nothing more than that - that is it. But it is made by Dorling Kindersley so the phots are lovely to look at, the usual white backgrounds and light shadowing. And there is a great interview with a Lego builder at the back.

The proof of the pudding is whether it can capture the imagination of a small boy, surrounded by computer games and footballs. He spent a long time reading it, and kept coming to me and pointing things out, then I found myself just sitting reading it. And then I just built some small items, because it isn't just about stacking up 4 red bricks, it is about using the bricks in a new way. Who guessed that 2 video box bricks become a hob, for example. So it also brought out the kids in me.

One demonstration of how the book really is an Ideas book is when he came up to me with the latest model, saying it was a house. I glanced up, expecting the usual box with a tree outside, but no, this was the ground floor of a house complete with kitchen and bedroom. And it really looked like a kitchen! And it wasn't just copied form the book, he had used some ideas and developed them. Really amazing!

SO if you have a child (or adult) at home who loves Lego but is finding it hard to take it up a notch, grab this book. Perfect as a gift for all ages. Visually stunning, creatively stimulating.

A++++

Whilst I love talking to other Lego fans about this wonderful building system, I can't say I have too much sympathy for the negative reviewers who were to expect "full building instructions" or to not have to use lots of bricks. Personally, I would have thought a clue as to what this book entails would be found in the title, since it is afterall named The Lego 'IDEAS' Book.

And that is exactly what this book sets out to do; to present a range of beautiful, imaginative and often very clever IDEAS that the reader will be inspired from and encouraged to use their own imagination. In doing so, you can build your own models without worrying about rigid instructions, requiring only certain types of bricks or not having flexibility in the designs. As someone who has been using Lego since the 80's, I can assure you that books just like this were once a very common release, but have sadly been lacking over recent years as I believe that Lego themselves are forgetting how less can be more, whilst both creative and imaginative design can be enhanced through challenging the user to make solutions, rather than simply putting them on a plate with 'special' bricks.

That is why books like this are special, because they place a positive slant on breaking free from instructions, instead, placing an emphasis on exploration. Their are model ideas to suit everyone here, and they're all categorised into 'Planes, Trains & Automobiles' (no, not the John Hughes film!), 'Town & Country', 'Out of this World', 'In Days of Old', 'A World of Adventure' and 'Make and Keep'. How typical of Dorling Kindersley to set things out in a fun but effective manner, which is the hallmark of all their brilliant books (especially their past Lego books too).

The layout of each section is relatively the same, and that conforms to a focus on visual aids that have genuine personality, which is both fun and engaging for kids and parents. It offers a way to give the book some life and offer a variety of quirky jokes that our minifigure friends like to tell, for they are clearly the stars here! But this visual focus also offers a great deal of depth into how a particular model idea could be made since many have alternate angles (to compare the mode from various sides) and of course, they are are bright and highly detailed, so its clear enough to get an idea of how you could be inspired by that particular design. Afterall, where's the fun in simply copying something when you're being challenged to build bigger and better?

Preceding each section of the book, we also have layout of the different brick types that may fall under that particular theme, thus helping children associate shapes and colours with their favourite Lego worlds. The authors of course do play a vital role in this book, for they are constantly interpreting the images and ensuring that the reader knows exactly what the model is, and how you could use it. With its quirky style of humour and fun outlook on building in general, it gives for a very positive read that offers tips and advice in building methods, alternate ways to use bricks and how particular model ideas can be expanded or even miniaturised ('Microbuilds' as they are termed!).

With all these clever ideas the book arrives at a brilliant finale with the 'Make and Keep' section, which offers a range of highly creative solutions to models that you could display around the house. No-matter whether you want to build some desk tidies, minifigure displays or even picture frames, there are ideas here that immediately click into place and get you thinking "No why didn't I think of that!".

I don't see the varying scales of each model to be a hinderance because what they all have in common is an objective, or set of 'building principles'. It is these things that give the models their unique properties (such as a box which has hinges, or a vehicle that needs four wheels), and therefore, anything else that contributes to the design is merely an imaginative gloss. It is the reason the authors never tell the user what they should and should not do, but rather to suggest how you could build the model using your own resources.

That fact remains is that more books like this should be on the market. With a shift in focus to more specialised bricks and 'closed-wall' sets from licensed themes, I fear that Lego is constraining one of the fundamental principles that makes the toy so joyous anyway, and that is the ability to keep reconstructing from the same simple bricks. Obviously the increased prices don't help either (particularly those of the simplest brick buckets), but it makes me so happy to see that Dorling Kindersley still embrace what Lego is really all about, and I do hope that future reviewers/potential buyers will be more aware in the future as to what books like this are all about... Encouraging the freedom of brick building!