The LEGO Zoo: 50 Easy-to-Build Animals

I can't express how much I love this book. It is perfect for our six year old Lego enthusiast. It is designed like the Lego instruction manuals you get inside the official Lego kits, which is exactly what we were looking for. We had previously bought books in the Lego Ideas series which don't give step-by-step instructions like this book, and our daughter was lost and bored with them. She loves trying to make the cute animals in this book. I'd say that ages five an up would have little trouble following along with the instructions. My only complaint is that some pieces used are hard to find, and it might be helpful to have a section at the end of the book that details which sets might be needed to include these hard-to-find pieces. I wish there were more Lego books like this one! more less

The LEGO Zoo is not the strongest offering from No Starch Press, in fact it is not up to the usual standard that fans expect from the prolific brick book publisher. This may be due to the title being a translation of a book from a different publisher, rather than an original release. It perhaps works a stocking filler for a young child, but is definitely not a must-have for the LEGO bookcase. more less

This is a fun little book. We would have liked to see it demonstrating how to build similar animals using only the parts found in creative boxes such as the one above. Or, at least, that it didn't suggest using quite so many parts that most people would have to turn elsewhere to purchase them prior to building. Also, the language in this book is really intended for young builders, rather than grown-ups, but that's not to say it wouldn't be fun for adults. As a gift for kids, it would probably be best to try a couple builds with them, and explain the concept of improvising to reduce frustration. Overall, even with its faults, we would recommend this book as an excellent source of ideas. more less