Build It! books, simple steps to get kids past the ‘kit’ stage of LEGO

You’ve seen some books about LEGO like this. They help you build creatures, ships, cars, landscapes or other works of art. The difference in these Build It! books is that they’re geared for younger LEGO fans and have one key thing that other building books do not have.

On back of the books they actually have the LEGO classic set number that is needed to create all of the things in the book. In the past you’ve looked at those beautiful LEGO books and thought to yourself, ‘that is so awesome, but where will find that small green brick with two studs’? For example everything in Volume 1 of Build It! can be a built with LEGO Classic Set 10693, that’s the entry level set. Volume 2 uses more pieces to create more intricate creatures and things using LEGO Classic Set 10695.

Volume 3 builds even more complicated things and Volume 4 is suited for advanced LEGO builders as it recreates world landmarks. Our seven year old is just starting to break out of the ‘kit mentality’ for LEGO. He absolutely loves playing with them and I’m convinced that it is the perfect toy. Over the years he’s received a couple of kits and one classic set. The main problem of LEGO kits is that once the thing is put together they don’t get played with much.

He tends to like his classic set better, but he wants to build something finite. He wants there to be a building goal or thing that he can be proud of and play with. That is what Volume 1 of Build It! does so well. They’re simple things that start out using 15 bricks to create little animals. By the end of the book it builds to an almost 60 piece building façade that he can then put together some trees to make his neighborhood look more suburban.

The instructions are simple and lay out all of the bricks needed for the creation at the start. There are large black arrows that point out exactly where the new bricks should be put. At the beginning of the book there are two pages the detail how to use the book. It does what a good parent does, it tells you what it’s going to do, then show you how it’s doing it and finally lets you proceed and do it yourself.

The Build It! books are from Graphic Arts Books and retail for $15.99 each.