LEGO: Adults Can Have Fun Too
By Audrey Swartz, Adult Services and Readers’ Advisory Librarian
I love LEGO. Do you love LEGO? Your friendly neighborhood readers’ advisory librarian is a huge fan of this interlocking brick system. Honestly, feel free to come by my office at the library to see my collection. I have a whole garden of flowers and a small collection of books, even a pop-up book. At home my collection is slightly nerdier, including many Star Wars ships, The Big Bang Theory set, Disney Villains, and even a LEGO Atari. LEGO has always embraced the idea that they are for everyone, but it wasn’t until 2017 that they started marketing directly to adults; the first adult age range sets weren’t released until 2020.
People often ask me why I LEGO. At first it was because I was stuck inside due to COVID, but now I find it helps me focus if I am getting overwhelmed or stressed. I can sit down and mindlessly snap bricks together while calming my anxiety and slowing my mind. It truly is an exercise in meditation for me. I tell you all this (a) for you to get to know me better, and (b) to introduce you to the LEGO book collection we have in our adult non-fiction.
“Toy Time!: From Hula Hoops to He-Man to Hungry Hungry Hippos: A Look Back at the Most-Beloved Toys of Decades Past” by Christopher Byrne.
“A nostalgic celebration of the most beloved toys of decades past—like Twister, LEGOs, My Little Ponies, Lite Brite, Viewmaster, Transformers . . . and much more. Attractive, gifty, and fully illustrated with photos of vintage toy packaging, advertisements, and of course the toys themselves, ‘Toy Time!’ is chock full of fun facts, trivia, and memories about the toys you cherished most.”
“LEGO: A Love Story” by Jonathan Bender.
“There are 62 LEGO bricks for every person in the world. Bender discovers the men and women who are skewing the averages with collections of hundreds of thousands of LEGO bricks. What is it about the ubiquitous, brightly colored toys that makes them so hard for everyone to put down? In search of answers and adventure, Jonathan Bender sets out to explore the quirky world of adult fans of LEGO (AFOLs) while becoming a builder himself.”
“The LEGO Story: How a Little Toy Sparked the World’s Imagination” by Jens Andersen and translated by Caroline Waight.
“The extraordinary inside story of the LEGO company—producer of the most beloved and popular toy on the planet—based on unprecedented access to the founding family that still owns the company, chronicling the brand’s improbable journey to become the empire that it is today”
“Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry” by David C. Robertson with Bill Breen.
“In the 1990s, LEGO failed to keep pace with the revolutionary changes in kids’ lives and began sliding into irrelevance. It took a new LEGO management team, faced with the growing rage for electronic toys, few barriers to entry, and ultra-demanding consumers, to reinvent the innovation rule book and transform LEGO into one of the world’s most profitable, fastest-growing companies.”
“Beautiful LEGO” by Mike Doyle.
“Mix hundreds of thousands of LEGO bricks with dozens of artists, and what do you get? ‘Beautiful LEGO,’ a compendium of LEGO artwork that showcases a stunning array of pieces ranging from incredibly lifelike replicas of everyday objects and famous monuments to imaginative renderings of spaceships, mansions, and mythical creatures.”
“Forbidden LEGO: Build the Models Your Parents Warned You Against!” by Ulrik Pilegaard and Mike Dooley.
“Written by a former master LEGO designer, this full color book contains projects that break the LEGO Company’s rules for building. Learn how to build a catapult that shoots M&Ms; a gun that fires LEGO beams; a continuous fire ping-pong ball launcher; and more! Tips and tricks will give you ideas for inventing your own creative model designs.”
“LEGO Architecture: The Visual Guide” by Philip Wilkinson in collaboration with Adam Reed.
“Beautifully illustrated and annotated, this visual guide allows you to explore the LEGO team’s creative process in building and understand how LEGO artists translated such iconic buildings into these buildable LEGO sets. Stunning images and in-depth exploration of the real buildings provide you with a comprehensive look at the creation of these intricate sets.”
The library also has a large LEGO book collection in children’s, several video games, and, of course, the movie available for check out. Swing by the library and browse the books, stop by and say hi to look at my collection, and even check to see if we are using them on displays. This month several of the fairytale books will be on display in the Young Adult section on our Fairytale Adaptations display.
Manhattan Public Library is a cornerstone of free and equal access to a world of ideas and information for the Manhattan, Kansas, community. Manhattan Public Library serves more than 75,000 people in the Riley County area through curated book and other media collections, knowledgeable staff, relevant programming for all ages, and meeting space. Learn more at mhklibrary.org.
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Audrey Swartz, Adult Services and Readers’ Advisory Librarian