Dr. Seuss's the Lorax - 50th Anniversary

I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees.

The Lorax was first published in 1971, so will be celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.  Yet, despite its age, its still one of the most loved children's books and is read in homes and schools everyday.  It also just happened to be the favorite book of Dr. Seuss himself.  The book has been made into movie, yet it has not been made into a Lego set, so I say it's high time this wonderful piece of literature gets the respect it deserves!

To celebrate I created a book that has been open and has come to life, as that of course is the beauty of a wonderful book.  This particular page represents the page where the Lorax first speaks to the Once-ler, although it contains some design elements from a few previous pages in order to give a bigger picture of the scene that has been set up at this point.  You will also see that the text from the book appears in the top right corner as it does in the actual book, and of course includes perhaps the most famous line from the book "I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees."

Years ago I submitted a contest entry to incorporate The Lorax into the Lego Ideas Pop-Up Book, and since then I had been planning on developing a project based on The Lorax.  The plan was always to recreate this scene after the Once-ler chops down his first Truffula Tree, and the Lorax pops out of the stump.  Not only is this a key moment in the story, but it allows me to take advantage of Lego's bright colors as opposed to the more drab colors that dominate the second half of the story.  So this set gives you the Once-ler's initial house, before it got biggered and biggered and biggered into a factory.  Inside the Once-ler's house you will also find his desk with the radio-phone.  If you wish to bring a Truffula Tree through the window to knit your Thneed, the desk is removable.  I represented the thneed with a tattered cape as it was the best I can do, but hopefully Lego would be able to come up with a more appropriately cut piece of fabric.

However, to make the set a bit more fun, I also wanted to recreate one of the tree-chopping vehicles from the book as well.  So also included is the vehicle that made the "sickening smack" when it cut down "the very last Truffula Tree of them all".  The trees are made of a cylinder and studs with holes, with a bar going thru them, so it would be very easy to use this machine to knock down trees without having them falling apart.

Now as you may recall we never did see the Once-ler in the book, only his hands and arms covered in his green gruvvulous gloves.  As a result, I decided to simply give him a solid green minifigure.  I did not want to go with the design of the character from the movie as this set is clearly based on the book.  The Lorax uses the same mold that was used to create Jeremy, the Nowhere Man, from The Beatles' Yellow Submarine set.  To go along with the main characters I also included Brown Bar-ba-loots with Truffula Fruit, Swomee-Swans, and Humming-Fish swimming in their pond.

I hope that you enjoy this set as much as I enjoyed building it.  Dr. Seuss has always been one of my favorite authors, and this has been one of my favorite books.  I now enjoy reading this book to my kids on a fairly regular basis, and think it would be a lot of fun for them to see it as a Lego set.  If you appreciate this set, and the Lorax, please support my project, and please share it with family and friends as well so that we can make this set a reality.  I appreciate all of your support.

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,

we won't reach 10,000, no we will not.