LEGO – BookBunnies

Caramel is a huge LEGO fan. He has already reviewed one LEGO book for the book bunnies blog; you might like to check out his review of The Big Book of Amazing LEGO Creations With Bricks You Already Have by Sarah Dees if you are curious. Today he talks about The Cult of LEGO, a neat book by John Baichtal and Joe Meno, first published in 2011. As usual Sprinkles is taking notes and asking followup questions.

[Saturdays are usually Marshmallow’s review days, but this week she is away on school business, and Caramel has had a lot to say about a lot of books recently. That is why we have a review from him this time. Watch this space next Saturday for more reviews from Marshmallow!]

Caramel reviews The Cult of LEGO by John Baichtal and Joe Meno. — Caramel reviews *The Cult of LEGO* by John Baichtal and Joe Meno.

Sprinkles: So Caramel, I know you love to play with LEGOs, but I did not expect you would grab this book from my paws when it arrived. I had intended to read it myself.

Caramel: Heh heh heh! Anything LEGO is my domain!

S: Hmm, I can see that. I had not thought that this book would appeal to you so much, because I thought it was mainly about the LEGO as a cultural phenomenon.

C: Well, there is that, too, but it also shows you a lot of cool LEGO creations from all sorts of people around the world, and they are awesome!

S: So you mainly appreciated the pictures then? I know it is a beautiful hardcover book with almost three hundred pages, full of pictures. And they are full color and very detailed. I can definitely see why you would like them. But did you read the book as a whole? Did you read the text part, too? –

C: Yes, of course. Because it was interesting.

S: Cool! So tell me what it is about then.

C: It’s about LEGO as a cultural phenomenon, like you said. And about what people do with it, and it explains what kinds of different LEGOs exist, and the history, too, how it got started, and so on.

S: Hmm, I can now see actually why I should have known you would enjoy this book. It is after all about LEGO and it is full of facts!

C: Yes!

Caramel is reading The Cult of LEGO by John Baichtal and Joe Meno. — Caramel is reading *The Cult of LEGO* by John Baichtal and Joe Meno.

S: So let us look at the book more carefully. Can you tell me your favorite LEGO creation in the book?

C: My favorite LEGO creation in this book is the Boba Fett costume that someone made with LEGOs. The person made it and then actually wore it! It is probably not very comfortable but it is definitely cool!

S: Of course, I should have expected your favorite would be something about Star Wars!

C: Of course! There is another one that I really liked.

S: I also saw that you had a favorite quote from the book that you wanted to share with our readers.

C: Yes. Somewhere there is the quote:

“The little LEGO has become the perfect tool for expressing our imagination.”
The Cult of LEGO

And I really like it!

S: I can see why! It captures the essence of why LEGOs have been so amazingly successful. They are so versatile; the bunnies playing with them have the freedom to do whatever they want with them. I can see this with you, Caramel. How you keep tweaking your space ships and robots and so on. Your mind is always creating, revising, renovating, and the LEGO is exactly flexible enough to let you do that.

C: Exactly.

S: Okay, Caramel, I think this is a good place to end our review today. What would you like to tell our readers?

C: Stay tuned for more book bunny reviews!

Caramel loved reading The Cult of LEGO by John Baichtal and Joe Meno and knows he will read and reread this book for many more months and years to come. — Caramel loved reading *The Cult of LEGO* by John Baichtal and Joe Meno and knows he will read and reread this book for many more months and years to come.

Caramel, like a lot of other little bunnies, loves to play with LEGO bricks. He loves building all kinds of contraptions and improving on his previous designs. Today he talks about a neat book he has been using to get some new design ideas: The Big Book of Amazing LEGO Creations With Bricks You Already Have, written in 2021 by Sarah Dees. As usual, Sprinkles is taking notes and asking questions.

Caramel reviews The Big Book of Amazing LEGO Creations With Bricks You Already Have by Sarah Dees. — Caramel reviews *The Big Book of Amazing LEGO Creations With Bricks You Already Have* by Sarah Dees.

Sprinkles: So Caramel, I know you love to play with LEGOs, but somehow I think this might be the first LEGO book you have read. Is that true?

Caramel: I think so.

S: So tell me about it.

C: It shows many many many things.

S: So there are different categories of things to build, right?

C: Yes. You can make a military humvee, a mouse, tiny vehicles, a semitruck, a trailer for the semi, and of course spaceships!

S: I somehow knew that there would be some of those!

C: Yep. There is also a dragon.

S: I see. So you can build all of your favorite things out of your own LEGO blocks.

C: Most of them do not need special bricks, so you can really build them from your own bricks. But some of them do need some special things, and we don’t have those.

S: Hmm, so it is not totally accurate to say “with bricks you already have” in the title then. Because you do have a large collection of LEGO bricks.

C: Yes, true. But it is still a pretty neat book. I could build a lot of the things I wanted to build.

S: Are the instructions clear? Can you follow them and build things easily?

C: Yep. There are fewer pictures than the ones that usually come in the LEGO boxes, but they are enough to build the things.

S: I can imagine if they tried to do the one-step-at-a-time thing like the LEGO instructions do, then the book would be much bigger.

C: Yep. There are a lot of things in the book.

S: How many?

C: Let me count. Hmm, I think there are at least seventy. The cover page says 75+, so there are a lot!

S: I see. And how many of them have you built so far?

C: Not many actually.

S: Well, you probably built most of the vehicles and the animals and the spaceships, right?

C: Pretty much.

S: Did you build the dragon?

C: No, unfortunately not. We don’t have all the pieces for it.

Caramel is reading The Big Book of Amazing LEGO Creations With Bricks You Already Have by Sarah Dees. — Caramel is reading *The Big Book of Amazing LEGO Creations With Bricks You Already Have* by Sarah Dees.

S: So do you think you are done with the book?

C: I read it all, but I will probably like to keep it near my LEGOs for a while.

S: Will you be building more of them, do you think?

C: Probably.

S: Is there any one that you built that was your favorite?

C: I really like the mini-spaceships.

S: I should have guessed! When you are building the things from this book, are you following all instructions precisely, or are you sometimes improvising, especially since sometimes you don’t have the parts?

C: Both.

S: And what are you planning to build next?

C: I don’t know. I’d like to try the dragon, but we don’t have the pieces for it. Other than that, there is a bunk bed and a desk that I might want to try to build.

S: That’s cool, Caramel! I’m glad you are enjoying reading the book and enjoying creating with it. How would you describe it in three words?

C: Instructional, doable, fun.

S: Those work! So let us wrap this up then so you can go back to building. What do you want to tell our readers?

C: Stay tuned for more book bunny reviews!

Caramel enjoyed reading The Big Book of Amazing LEGO Creations With Bricks You Already Have by Sarah Dees and has been having a ton of fun building the many many different things suggested in it. — Caramel enjoyed reading *The Big Book of Amazing LEGO Creations With Bricks You Already Have* by Sarah Dees and has been having a ton of fun building the many many different things suggested in it.