The June 2018 LEGO® Store freebie, the Creative Storybook, is a fairly substantial one. The Shop-at-Home website advertises it as being worth $26.99 CAD. You also have to spend a fair amount of money to get it, upwards of $99 to be precise. I got this one in conjunction with my purchase of Carnotaurus Gyrosphere Escape from the Jurassic World theme. You get double VIP points with select Jurassic World sets this month, so getting the Creative Storybook as well made the deal that much sweeter. Let’s see how the Creative Storybook hold up.
SET SUMMARY
NAME: Creative Storybook
SET #: 40291
THEME: LEGO® Store freebie
COST: Valued at $26.99 CAD
BRICK COUNT: 307
MINIFIGURES: 2
RELEASE DATE: June 4, 2018
SUMMARY REVIEW: 84%
VALUE: 100% (Free with purchase.)
BUILD: 90% (Overall really neat design.)
MINIFIGURES: 74% (Satisfactory Minifigures, good brick:fig.)
ENTERTAINMENT: 70% (Great build-time value, but not much play value.)
REVIEW
VALUE: 100%
This set was free with any purchase over $99, but it is being advertised as being worth $26.99 CAD. At that price, with 307 pieces, this set would have a cost per brick of $0.09. Even if this set wasn’t free with purchases, that would be a phenomenal value. I give this set 5/5 (100%).
BUILD: 90%
This set has a really neat design. It actually looks like a book. I like the idea of a story popping out of the pages as well. One side of the book features a park scene with the Minifigure version of Hans Christian Andersen writing a book, and a boy with a pretzel. I quite like this side of the build. The other side is a pond scene with a swan. I don’t like that side of the build quite as much. I find the look of the water to be a little inconsistent. It could have used a few more trans-blue 1×2 tiles to fill it out. I also don’t like brick-built birds. Overall though, it is not bad at all. I give this set 9/10 for build.
MINIFIGURES: 74%
The Creative Storybook comes with two Minifigures. One of them is sadly an ape-child with overly long arms, and stumpy, unbending legs. That loses this set some points right off the bat. One Minifigures comes with hair, the other a hat. Neither one has a double-sided face, but both have front printing on their torsos. Only the child has and back print. Neither has leg printing. For accessories, you get a pretzel and a book. This book is actually a new design. There is an actual hinge joint, as opposed to the old books with thinner areas of plastic to fold. There are also studs in this book to attach a printed tile that represents pages. A Minifigure can actually hold this book nicely as well. I really like this new book, and hope to see it more often. I give these Minifigures 20/30 (67%) for design.
With 307 bricks, this set has a brick-to-Minifigure ratio of bout 154:1. That is a good value, and earns 4/5 (80%). Combining that score with the design score gives Creative Storybook an overall Minifigure rating of 74%.
ENTERTAINMENT: 70%
This set took me 37 minutes to build. If this set had cost me the advertised $26.99, then each minute of build time would have cost $0.73. That earns a satisfactory 3.5/5 (70%). But, again, this set was actually free. So, I will give it 100% for its build-time value score. As for my enjoyment of this set, I am on the fence. As I mentioned before, I quite like the design. But, there isn’t much of a play factor to it. This is really a display-only set. I also don’t plan to keep it built. It does come with a lot of great pieces though. I give it 2/5 (40%) for enjoyment since there is not much play value to it. Averaging the build-time and enjoyment scores give Creative Storybook an overall entertainment rating of 70%.
OVERALL: 84%
Creative Storybook is a nice looking set. It is being given away for free this month (June 2018) with purchases over $99 at the LEGO® Store. For that reason, it is a really good value both per brick, and in terms of build-time. The Minifigures are satisfactory, but somewhat generic. It is meant to be a display set, but loses some of its fun-factor because of that. You get a lot of great, re-usable pieces in this kit though. Overall, it’s still a pretty good set.
How do you feel about the Creative Storybook set? Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Until next time,
-Tom
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