The I Spy book series is a favorite of mine. I collected all of the books as a kid (including the challenge ones!) and have recently started looking at them with my son again. The attention of detail that went into creating each scene is quite incredible and you can always find new things if you look hard enough.
As impressive as the creation of these scenes are, what’s even more impressive is that someone has gone ahead and recreated it with only LEGO bricks. Posted in the LEGO Reddit this morning, user burnt-coding shared an image of the scene called “Blocks” from the very first I Spy book.
Seeing as I own this book myself, I decided to do my own thorough comparison of Walter Wick’s original design compared to this brick-built version. And honestly, it’s really quite impressively done. The main things that the builder wasn’t able to accurately portray were the 11 bears. As indicated in the post, they had to replace the bears with helmets to be able to get close. There’s also the three-headed dragon, which seems to have been replaced by three parrots instead. The minifigures don’t exactly align with the original figures in the book, but they do get close.
All-in-all, it’s a really impressive feat that requires pieces from a ton of different builds. I even recognized the cow and horse figures featured here from LEGO’s Duplo Farm set that I recently purchased for my son. This is a MOC that resonates deeply with one of my favorite childhood activities and one of the reasons I love keeping up with the LEGO community. This is the kind of set I would happily buy if it ever got turned into a LEGO Ideas set.
Can You Still Buy the Original I Spy Book?
I Spy: A Book of Picture Riddles
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If you don’t still own a copy of the original I Spy book, the good news is that you can still buy the hardcover version on Amazon. It’s not the exact same edition I own, but the only difference seems to be slight changes to the cover art. The “Blocks” scene is the first picture riddle featured in this book, and parts of it are also featured in various Challenge books I Spy later released.
Jacob Kienlen is a Senior Audience Development Strategist and Writer for IGN. Born and raised in Portland, Oregon, he has considered the Northwest his home for his entire life. With a bachelor’s degree in communication and 10 years of professional writing experience, his expertise is spread across a variety of different pop culture topics — from TV series to books and the latest LEGO sets.
