Much like a toddler in a toyshop, The LEGO Group has reached out and touched everything within reach. Anyone unfamiliar with LEGOs needs to stumble away from their videogame and smell the plastic. In 1949, the first little red Automatic Binding Bricks poured from Ole Kirk Christiansen’s imagination. In 1953, they became LEGO Bricks and you could build anything with them- as long as it required only bricks, plates, axels, and wheels. They did not include instructions. More specialized parts followed. Then, town, farm, and space sets followed. Nowadays, LEGO is as tied into current youth culture as every other toy company: video games, movies, and apparel.

Out of this mix of rainbow colored plastic and undirected play, a culture of creativity has arisen. For instance, Brickfest 2005 has come and gone and you probably never even thought about going. Beginning on August 12, Adult Fans of LEGO® (AFOLs) gathered at George Mason University in Washington, D.C., where they did unspeakable things with LEGOs. Judging from the 79+ pages of photos available, AFOLs base their community on pirates, robots, and architecture. Perhaps that is the reason that Brickfest and its crazed attendees seem so oddly delightful. At their best, they have taken the directions out of the box and thrown them away.

Eric Harshbarger has built giant LEGO mosaics of Alice in Wonderland characters. Henry Lim has built a functioning harpsichord out of LEGOs and wire. Until it is your turn to borrow the harpsichord, the best online LEGO-related entertainment remains the Brick Testament created by Brendan Powell Smith. Smith has received a lot of publicity for his LEGO creations over the years (and published a few books), but there remains something magical about a well-executed LEGO diorama.

August, 2005

So, you’re standing on the library’s threshold with the towhead of your heart beside you. The youngster looks up in dismay and speaks the words that will haunt your child rearing nights: “So, where’s the good stuff?” You could ask a librarian, but they’re all busy with high schoolers doing research papers and patrons freaking out because the Internet is down. You could look in the library catalog, but you’re not convinced that there will be many entries under “good stuff.”

All Monroe County libraries are organized using the Dewey Decimal system, which arranges non-fiction according to a primary subject tied to a number from 0 to 999. This means that books about automobiles are together under 629 (though race cars are at 796). Hardback fiction has a distinct section; while mysteries, science fiction, short stories, and paperbacks are sometimes shifted to nearby shelves.

Within these sections, books are in alphabetical order by author. Biographies are alphabetized by subject matter (for example, Little Monsters, the Real Story of Pikachu by Kitty Kelley is under “P”). The libraries have a separate area for juvenile books, imitating the adult section with divisions for non-fiction and fiction. Adolescent fiction is usually placed in a Young Adult area.

The trick is to have some sense of what will appeal to your child. Use questions like, “What do you think of when I say the words, ‘baby pandas’?” or “Have I ever told you about the time Abbott and Costello saved my life?” Once you’ve defined the good stuff, it’s time to turn to:

August, 2005

No longer having a nine-year-old readily at hand, we here at the Family Valued executive laundromat, test kitchen, and family pressroom have randomly selected a ten-year-old from among the one immediately available.

So, what have you been reading lately?
Horrible Histories and Horrible Science.

What is that?
Horrible Science is about icky science stuff. And Horrible Histories is about different people and their history which is icky. It’s only the icky bits. They might offend some people.

So there’s no non-icky history?
There’s timelines which tell what icky stuff was going on- that’s kind of real history.

I notice that’s quite a pile of books beside you.
There’s lots of them: The Rotten Romans; The Terrible Tudors; The Cutthroat Celts: and Dark Knights and Dingy Castles. That’s only some of them. In the Groovy Greeks, they had some pretty icky beliefs. If you went onto a certain path with a dog or a cat, then something bad would happen. The Greeks are one of my favorite people out of the ancient world. In the WW I book, there were lots and lots of lice on the soldiers. It was pretty gross.

The books have a lot of illustrations, I notice.
They have silly little pictures and a little comic in the beginning of each Horrible Histories. The pictures are kind of sick humor and silly pictures and stuff. There’s also an activity book. I did not know about these when I read my first Horrible Histories book.

Would you recommend the books?
Yes, they’re very good. People who are interested in history, or social studies in my case, will like them. And if they like humor- history humor.

January, 2006