I could not wait to get this set! There was quite a bit of media hype around it (even The Economist wrote about the first-ever LGBTQIA+ set that LEGO launched). Once I heard it was available locally I ordered one online from LEGO Certified Stores South Africa, and it arrived within three days!
Matthew Ashton is the Vice President of Design at the LEGO Group and Designer of the Everyone Is Awesome model. He says in this beautiful article, Why I designed “Everyone is Awesome” by Matthew Ashton, “I hope it’s a joy to build and a joy to look at, and hopefully it will bring a lot of joy to people’s lives.” And it truly does.
Cara couldn’t wait to unbox the set either. And although I tried to explain to her that Mommy bought this for herself (for a change…), she was adamant that we had to share. So glad the sharing lessons are landing. She helped me put all 11 characters together: black, brown, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, light blue, white and pink. We just loved all the different hairstyles and she would comment on all the differences in such a loving way.
When we started putting the base together she lost a bit of interest, so I thought, “Yay, I’ll build this later on my own”… Little did I know Conrad jr had other plans. He insisted on helping me build the rest, and I was amazed at how those little three-year-old hands managed to put the small pieces in the correct order. Once you get going it’s quite therapeutic: every second row is the same, and you get into a rhythm of putting the colours next to each other.
Conclusion
Once the set was done, it was gorgeous. I was disappointed that it went relatively quickly, but I do love the simplicity and clean lines. I can really recommend this set for adults and children alike, and it creates an opportunity to talk about diversity in a very uplifting way.
