Did you know that both male and female reindeer grow antlers, or that the giant squid has eyes as big as footballs? I didn’t, but I do now thanks to LEGO DK Animal Atlas.

LEGO Animal Atlas comes with 60 LEGO bricks, and instructions to make four LEGO animals – a penguin, a giraffe, a kangaroo and a panda.

This book does a great job of mixing learning with fun. As a reader you’re taken on a journey through each continent, and the habitats and animals which live there. There’s fact bubbles on each page – like the fact that the Hercules beetle can carry more than 85 times it’s own weight!

Along with this, the artwork is fab and every animal that’s mentioned is shown built out of LEGO. In fact it’s a great book to flick through and try to work out how the animals were made.

To help guide there are tips dotted throughout on how to make certain features – but even looking at the pictures is sure to spark imagination, and shows just what’s possible with LEGO bricks!

The only negative that I have with Animal Atlas is that the builds which came with the book are a bit well, meh compared to some of the other animals shown in the book. But I’m not the target market. Santa brought my 7 year old this book for Christmas, so I asked him to write a quick review of what he thought of the builds, and here’s what he thought:

Panda: easy to make

Giraffe: nice to make

Penguin: real easy to make

Kangaroo: a big challenge