At one point or another, everyone takes their LEGO bricks and attempts to build an animal or two. Stacking bricks to create legs and a body to create a rudimentary animal is the beginning steps to a bigger world, but what happens when a builder wants to move to the next level? That’s where The LEGO Zoo by Jody Padulano comes in.
The LEGO Zoo is broken out into five chapters, each containing anywhere from six to fifteen animals. From the table of contents, the organization isn’t obvious, as the animals in each of the chapters are unrelated from an animal perspective, but as the book is read through, it becomes obvious that the order of the animals is based on complexity of the build, with the first chapter the easiest animals to build and the fifth chapter the most complex.
Each animal is introduced on its first page with a sentence or two about the animal, a brick difficulty meter that goes from one to five, and a parts list. Once all the parts from the first page are acquired, it is time to start building. The building instructions are similar to the ones found in official LEGO sets, except The LEGO Zoo puts as many as eight instructions on a single page to maximize space for all the animals in the menagerie.
The instructions for each animal are clear, concise, and easy to follow. Beginners picking up their first brick to advanced builders who have been stacking bricks for years will have no problems following the directions and will be building them all in no time. The LEGO Zoo uses minimal words (I’ve probably read books with more words on a single page than the entirety of words in this entire book), but it makes the building of the animals more universal and less complex for the building process.
The LEGO Zoo is the perfect book for individuals of all ages to learn how to build better animals. It’s the perfect launching point to learn how to build 50 different animals, and hopefully be inspired to build even more in the future.
