Brick and Brickability

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Happy birthday Jane Austen! We’re celebrating this literary titan with a brick-tastic review of LEGO’s “Tribute to Jane Austen’s Books” set, constructed and reviewed by our legendary intern, Melanie Zhang. Take it away, Melanie!

The queen of witty quips herself, Jane Austen, has finally been given the recognition she deserves! The timing was perfect—Katie, Dr. Dana, and I had just been bemoaning the lack of female literary icons amongst our LEGO sets, when we happened upon LEGO’s Tribute to Jane Austen’s Books.

The set is composed of 361 pieces. While apparently meant only for builders 18 and above, I think this is definitely doable for kids as well, with maybe a little bit of help for the trickier parts. The most difficult portion for me personally was the stickers. Fortunately, I only encountered four. Three of them also show scenes from film adaptations of Jane’s books, so I can’t complain.

Jane’s little room came together pretty quickly. It took me around an hour to complete on fast-mode. However, this is definitely a set where you want to take your time and admire all the little bits and pieces as they come together. Once again, LEGO was incredibly creative with how pieces are used. You’ll never guess what are secretly masquerading as piano pedals!

One issue I encountered was that some pieces do not match the color of their instruction booklet counterparts. In particular, some pieces that are depicted as quite reddish in the instructions are more of a brown color in person. The different blue books on Jane’s shelf also gave me a bit of trouble. Fortunately, that was an easy fix, and I was able to carry on building.

The finished product is beautiful to look at, and makes for a pretty good mini-dollhouse as well. In her default position, Jane is facing away from her bookshelf, but she can very easily be standing before it and browsing for her next read.

Another quick readjustment, and she’s contemplating some time looking out the window or playing the piano. The possibilities are endless! Turn the set around, and now Jane is cozied up inside an open book. Back inside on a cold day, Jane could be warming her hands in front of the fire instead. As a side note, the fireplace does wobble a little.

This is a set that I’m sure Lizzie Bennett herself would be proud of. For the burgeoning Jane Austen fan in your life, whether they are fifteen (and being kept away from Bath) or twenty-seven (and feeling like a parental burden), this set will be sure to please.

Pop’s Top 10: Literary Gowns

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Remember when this dress premiered on the Eras Tour? We do! The custom Vivienne Westwood gown is filled with different handwritten versions of the phrase “I love you, it’s ruining my life,” a lyric from Track 1 of Tay’s 2024 album, The Tortured Poets Department. It inspired us to seek out more artists and designers who took literary fashion to the next level. So today we present Pop’s Top 10 literary gowns!

#1 GONNA BE GOLDEN

Created by Ryan Jude Novelline, the artist stitched together the colorful illustrations from discarded Little Golden Books, and fashioned a bodice from the spines. If you’d like to read an interview about his amazing creation, please follow this link.

#2 BOOK WITCH

From Reddit

Posted on Reddit, the detailing on this dress is off the charts! Plus, the hat! The HAT.

#3 SUPER SEUSS

Created by Rebecca Humes, the Seuss-specific shredded tutu and bouncy book characters on springs is delightfully whimsical!

#4 DISNEY DANCER

Another dress by Rebecca Humes. But this one was created from Disney books and features a skirt composed of thousands of chain links. WOW!

#5 POTTER PROM

Hailey Skoch rustled her way to her Arkansas senior prom in a dress made from multiple volumes of Harry Potter books! You can read more about her process here.

#6 FANTASTIC FAIRY

Winner of cutest, most adorable wings and folded tutu is this phenomenal book fairy!

#7 VOLUMINOUS VOLUMES

This distinct dress with a colonial flare was created by White Knight Cosplay. And just look at that teacup broach!

#8 FAIRY TALE FASHIONISTA

A stack of unwanted volumes transformed into a fairy tale worthy dress by Helen Hobden, who also entered it in a contest judged by Maisie Williams! Read more about her adventure here.

#9 BOUND TO IMPRESS

French designer Silvie Facon created this flowing masterpiece from old leather spines that had separated from books. It took 250 hours! More more extensive photos, plus more dresses, please follow this link.

#10 SHORT STORY

Silvie Facon also created this sassy little folded dress, again by only using books that were beyond repair. For more details, please see this link.

Feeling inspired but also maybe a tad overwhelmed by the sheer volume of talent? No worries! You can craft this simple origami newsprint dress by following the instructions here.

Pssst! We also made a Cinderella dress out of highly unusual materials! See that here.

Wicked Science

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Bright, swirling smoke in shades of neon pink and electric green forms bold, energetic shapes, creating a striking abstract background with vibrant colors.

Calling all citizens of Oz and abroad! You are cordially invited to enroll in Shiz University’s elite sorcery class to learn the science behind the magic. That’s right…we’re off to see the science!

The Cotsen Children’s Library, Department of Chemistry, and Science Outreach at Princeton University were delighted to present a morning of hands-on activity tables, followed by a 45-minute auditorium show with plenty of glitter and gravitas!

As Ozian’s entered the event floor, they were greeted with tables staffed by graduate and undergraduate students from Science Outreach at Princeton University (who gamely showed up dressed in pink and green!).

Kids wielded static electricity wands, learned about magnetic levitation, unveiled the Grimmerie’s invisible ink, tested Glinda’s bubble travel potion, and examined the pH levels of popular potions.

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There was also a yellow brick road magnet game table, and, just in case you missed it in the slideshow above, a truly magnificent dry ice tabletop tornado, which Katie constructed with the help of this Steve Spangler video.

After the activity tables had been thoroughly perused, Angie Miller from the Department of Chemistry invited students to attend Shiz University’s very own “Potions 101” class, which was held in the Taylor Auditorium on Princeton University campus.

Angie the Amazing lead the class through the tenets of the scientific method with emerald flames, rainbow beakers, conservation of mass, water boiling at room temperature, and more! She also defied gravity with the Meissner Effect (i.e. cooling a superconductor with liquid nitrogen to levitate a magnet). My personal favorite? Candy combustion – a dramatic demonstration of what happens when potassium chlorate meets Skittles:

Of course, it wouldn’t be magic/science without things culminating in fire and explosions, so Angie ramped things up with metal salt flames and firework balloons. Katie and I both managed to get footage of the fun:

The event was absolutely wonderful, and we would like to thank Angie Miller in the Department of Chemistry, Paryn Wallace with the Science Outreach at Princeton University, and all the graduate and undergraduate students who volunteered their time to reach out to community families! We appreciate you so much!

Science Outreach at Princeton University. Back row (from left to right): John Woo, Rishika Porandla, Anushri Mahabir, Harper Vance, Nneka Onyea, Adriana Gaitan, Zaighum Nagra, Davis Hobley. Front row (from left to right): Maya Cabrera, Kelsey Campbell, Meghana Bhupat, Anna Buretta, Adrija Kundu, Tam Nguyen