Lego

Each year, an estimated 80 to 90 million children receive a LEGO set, and up to 10 million adults buy sets for themselves. The brick is only the starting point. This book follows a Danish family that has spent nearly a century arguing for children's right to play, and that encourages grown-ups to make room for their own playful side.

The account draws on the company's own archives and on long conversations with Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, the former president and CEO of the LEGO Group and grandson of its founder, Ole Kirk Christiansen. Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, a third-generation owner, has endorsed the book as an account of how his family built the brand.

Beyond the corporate story, the book is a cultural history of how attitudes toward childhood and play have shifted across generations. It also traces how innovation and creativity turned a small carpentry workshop into the world's largest producer of play materials and a brand known across the globe.

Richly illustrated with photographs from the family's private archive, many never published before, the book is aimed at LEGO enthusiasts who want to know the full history behind the bricks.