As it is May the 4th (an unofficial Star Wars day),  DK Publishing is presenting a special online event celebrating reading – and Star Wars!

As part of this event, DK Canada is launching a photo contest for Canadians, where they could win a complete set of DK Star Wars books.  For every photo submitted, DK will donate $2 to Frontier College, Canada’s original literacy organization.  The contest will run from May 4th to May 31st.  The full contest details, including entry Rules & Regulations, can be found here.

Other sites to check out are:

http://starwars.com/

http://maythe4th.starwars.com/

Now in honour of the day, please enjoy my review of the New York Times bestseller, The LEGO Star Wars Visual Dictionary.

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The LEGO Star Wars Visual Dictionary Review by Erin V.  

I’d seen and built a couple of mini Star Wars LEGO sets in the past (who hasn’t?), but some of the ones profiled here are amazingly (yet simply) intricate, playing up a perfect juxtaposition of the well-loved Star Wars and LEGO worlds.

Following a nice timeline of the sets from 1999 to 2010, the book is divided into four chapters, (Ch. 1: The Movie Saga, Ch.2: The Clone Wars, Ch. 3: Specialist Sets, and Ch. 4: Beyond the Brick).  The first three are pretty self-explanatory – fun to read and simply laid out profiles and info on all the different sets and minifigures – although the fourth chapter I’ll mention quickly.

It’s a short chapter, but starts with a very interesting interview with design manager Jens Kronvold of the LEGO Star Wars team in Billund, Denmark, giving quick insight into some of the design challenges that need to be met and how accurate the figures are to the film.  The chapter finishes with a couple of pages on merchandising, and the community.

Overall, I found this to be a fun book for Lego (and Star Wars) fans of all ages – plus, it comes with an exclusive Luke Skywalker minifigure – if you’re a collector, how could you resist that?

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To see the complete list of DK’s Star Wars books, please click here.  To read more about The Lego Star Wars Visual Dictionary, please click here.