by Novelty is a powerful force. It can take something that’s relatively weak, and give it the illusion of being interesting, at least for a while. On the other hand, it can take an already strong work and make it one of a kind. Thankfully, The LEGO Adventure Book falls firmly into the latter category.
Let’s address the novelty first, shall we?
At it’s heart, The LEGO Adventure Book is simply a way of showing off cool models, then giving you instructions on building them. It focuses on a lot of great techniques along the way, which should help the reader become a better builder overall. That’s pretty good on its own, but there’s another layer here in that the whole book is turned into a narrative whereby the author’s avatar (Megs) travels through various LEGO® worlds and meeting some of the incredible builders who live in them. This is accomplished by making the entire book a comic (a LEGO® comic? sweet!), which has the added benefit of allowing the entirety of the book be visual.
The book starts, appropriately enough, with a few of Megs’ own creations, including a helper robot and a hovering transportation platform she uses to travel the length and breadth of the LEGO® universe. Once her home base is established, Megs sets out to meet a bunch of incredible builders in a number of different genres. Each builder introduces several of their models, along with instructions on how to build them.
The book is well organized, and the complexity of the models goes up as you get further into The LEGO Adventure Book. By the time you get to the end of the book, there are some really, really complex builds in there. That means that quite a bit of the book is going to be over the heads of younger builders, although they will likely still enjoy the ride.
The instructions themselves are quite well done. They are similar to official LEGO® instructions in that they are entirely pictorial (with the occasional comment or building tip thrown in), however they are not nearly as simple. Instead of adding two or three parts at a time, these instructions tend to go at a quicker pace. Here’s an example (taken from the book’s official website):
One thing that I really enjoyed about this book was that it covered a lot of ground. That way if a certain topic isn’t quite your thing, you’re not going to be on it for too long (of course even with the stuff I wasn’t too excited about, it was still really cool to see all the model work). How much ground does it cover? Well, we get town sets, racing cars, mining, planes, space, mechs, castle, dinosaurs, trains, steampunk, and even Friends. The selection is incredibly diverse.
While the book might be a little much for younger readers, and possibly frustrating to those with smaller collections, it’s still an incredibly well put together book with a ton of great builders showing off some of their most impressive creations. Even those who don’t wish to use the instructions will likely enjoy the book on its own merits.
Grade: 
I absolutely love these types of books. The best part is how they reach out to AFOL’s for new ideas 🙂
Yes indeed. This is also apparently “Book One”, so hopefully we’ll see some more of these in the future.
I need something like this. Unfortunately I also need a lot more elements. My LEGO collection is a little thin. I am hoping that my mom brings her grandkids another tote of yard sale LEGO, like she did last Christmas (yeah, it’s for the kids. That’s the ticket).
I’d love to know where people find all this garage sale LEGO. I’ve been looking for years now. I’ve found some Duplo, and that’s it. Loads of megabloks though.
My mom is the queen of swap meets and yard sales. Last year she brought us a pretty good sized tote of LEGO.
I’m kind of jealous. I need to find me a frequent yard salers and task them with finding LEGO in good condition.
Interesting. Now that you’ve mentioned this, I recall (barely) a book or two when the LEGO minifigs first came out, that had an adventure of a couple of the figures who traveled around all the LEGO worlds back then, like City, Space, and Castle. Heck if I could find where they’re buried now, somewhere in my mom’s house!
Really? I’d definitely be interested in other books that use this style.
Sadly, it wasn’t any type of “how to” book, just used the sets for the story, and it was all without words, since back then it was an international market. It still inspired me to do my best, with my limited pieces, to copy the designs in the book.
Looks I will have to check this out.