From Legos to Roller Girl

This is going to sound crazy, but I like Legos. It's sort of a love/hate relationship, really. They're all over my house, little 1x1s in the carpet, dumped piles in the middle of the living room, and Lego tracks on every surface. I feel like I need a snow shovel to clean this stuff up! After another big box enters the house, and I find pieces erupting all over the place, I inevitably howl at the moon, "NOOooo! This is the last time I'm buying little plastic blocks!"

Yet, the mini-figures are ingenious and tap into my monkey brain. Different. Cute. Must. Collect. And I love standing in the toy aisle trying to figure out what I'm feeling through the wrapper...not in a creepy way, mind you. In a...wait. Is that a...? (crinkle-crinkle) No...a penguin, maybe? That's a camera...already have it. I'm pretty sure this is the Ice Queen! Squee!

Ice Queen

Mini Figure Series 16

The worst part is I'm pretty organized and can't stand to see the sets all messed up and co-mingling with other loose bricks. I told my kids, "Hey. Great idea, here. Let's print off the pick list in the back of the directions and re-package the sets...then you can put them together all over again! Fun, right?"

I tried it, and it went over like a lead balloon. Why are there missing pieces? Where do they go?

Believe it or not, this story is moving toward a graphic novel I just read...bear with me. The book is called Roller Girl by Victoria "Winnie the Pow" Jamieson and is a Newberry Honor book.

While out celebrating a birthday, and as per usual we ended up at the Lego store, we started building roller derby girls from the mini-fig station. Of course, once you start building, it's hard to stop and even harder to walk away. Needless to say, more Legos entered the building...my building, my house. But they're so dang cute!

We created two teams...

The Blazies: Banana Splat, Winning Cup, Fruit Punch

Versus

The Cracken Skulls: Go-Go-Grizzly, Chompanzie, Bam-Bam

Game on! The only thing missing were the roller skates. No problem. The helpful Lego guy told me if I knew the part number, I could order individual brick pieces online at Lego.com. I quickly discovered Brickowl.com for an organized list of all kinds of Lego-y plastic bits: wigs, bodies, blocks...you name it. So I ordered the roller skates and the missing pieces from the set I was trying to package last summer, and...behold. Even I know I've entered dangerous territory.

So there it is. Legos and Roller Girl, a book we're still thinking about. It's a great graphic novel for kids!