Review by Booklist Review
The story of the LEGO toy company is a tumultuous one, shadowed by bankruptcy and unending obstacles. However, it's also one of perseverance. Andersen wrote this book with access to archives and Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, grandson of founder Ole Kirk Christiansen. LEGO, derived from the Danish leg godt, meaning play well, started as a wooden-toy business in the 1930s. Eventually the company adopted plastic into their manufacturing, and in 1947 the LEGO brick was born. The popularity of LEGO continued to soar, and in the 1950s, the company debuted LEGOLAND and DUPLO, a larger brick for toddler-sized hands. Andersen closely follows the company's evolution to the modern day, including how they once again skirted bankruptcy in 2004 by partnering with contemporary media, film, and gaming culture to produce LEGO sets like Star Wars and Harry Potter. They have continued to grow, creating their own movie franchise and a TV show designed around LEGO building competitions. Those interested in LEGO history will find this book comprehensive and will enjoy interviews, photos, and the evolution of a toy legend.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Biographer Andersen (Astrid Lindgren: The Woman Behind Pippi Longstocking) turns to the legacy of Lego in this charming outing. Using the Lego Group's archives and conversations with former president and CEO Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen (founder Ole Kirk Christiansen's grandson), Andersen begins in 1915, in Western Jutland, Denmark, when Christiansen, a carpenter, bought a wood workshop. But his business foundered, only to be saved in 1932 after a lumber merchant saw toys Christiansen made and placed a large order for them. Toys became the center of Kristiansen's company, and the plastic blocks the company is famous for came about thanks to a mid-1940s wood shortage and inspiration from the "self-locking building bricks" made by an English toy company. Not long after, the company opened a headquarters in Germany, and, after a 1956 PR campaign, "money started rolling in." The upward trajectory continued in the early 1970s, when "expansion grew by 155 percent," and by the 1980s, the company signed a deal with McDonald's in America. Andersen does a great job showing the company's lasting power through 90 years of change, and the archival photos are a treat. This will delight business history buffs. (Nov.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A cultural and business history of "a global company and a Danish family who for ninety years have defended children's right to play--and who believe grown-ups, too, should make the time to nurture their inner child." A few dozen pages into his narrative, Danish journalist Andersen turns up a fact that might surprise fans of LEGO (he follows company practice in capitalizing the name but without its customary trademark sign): The idea for the molded plastic bricks was borrowed from a British firm, which led to a patent investigation. "With a handful of pieces like these," as Andersen reconstructs founder Ole Kirk Christiansen's aha moment, "any child would be able to copy real-life tradesmen and become their own masons." That utilitarian note is unsurprising given that Christiansen ran a profitable construction firm that survived the Great Depression in part by building things such as ladders, high chairs, and, yes, toys that placed children in adult roles. In Christiansen's carefully thought-through ideology, it went both ways: Children might play as adults, but adults, he urged, needed to recapture the spirit of childhood play. Andersen links this attention to child development with a sweeping cultural movement. "In the 1940s and early 1950s, several landmark children's books were written in Scandinavia," he writes. "For the first time in world literature, adult writers dared to make children and childlike characters the first-person narrators of children's books, giving children natural-sounding voices." Christiansen would go on to build an empire of toys that expanded in many directions under the care of his descendants--the company is wholly family owned--and eventually led to another treasure: LEGOLAND, the much-beloved Danish theme park. Not every LEGO experiment panned out, and entering the American market (at first in an unlikely partnership with Samsonite, the luggage manufacturer) proved difficult, but the company has continued to thrive. A welcome gift for the LEGO lover in the family and a revealing work of business history as well. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
