female Lego mini-figures (check this out!!)

[citymama]

The girls, by and large, were not finding the regular LEgos appealing enough to buy. We can shout all the time "Girls can play with Legos too" But if they won't buy it -- what's the point?

Hah, be careful of stereotypes - my younger girl is lego crazy - just the way they are!

Older girl is not as interested, but I bet she would be into the new sets.

For every budding girl (and boy) engineer out there not as into legos, there's always GoldiBlox! http://www.goldieblox.com/

[vonfirmath]

Hah, be careful of stereotypes - my younger girl is lego crazy - just the way they are!

Older girl is not as interested, but I bet she would be into the new sets.

For every budding girl (and boy) engineer out there not as into legos, there's always GoldiBlox! http://www.goldieblox.com/

What stereotypes?
Some girls love Lego (I had a huge collection as a kid that I have started parcelling out to give to my son; though in looking back I realize that my real loves in Lego were exactly the things that Lego is doing in Friends sets now. Maybe the reason I lost interest in Lego was NOT because I grew older but, rather, that they stopped making the types of sets I enjoyed. After all, you hear time and again about the kids that are playing with Legos into their teens!)

Some girls obviously did not love Lego before and are buying them now. The Friends sets are flying off the shelves in a way that Paradisa and Belville sets did NOT. So evidently it is not a matter of "If you make it look girly they will buy it" but there is something different about these sets than the previous tries that are actually attracting folks to buy and buy again.

I'm not that interested in Goldieblox. They seem way too one-dimensional for the price. But great for those who like them.

I very deliberately used "Most" because obviously some girls WERE buying and playing with existing Legos and making it work for how they wanted to play. (evidently the Harry Potter sets attracted a lot more girls as well.) Just like some boys are buying the Friends sets because it has made entirely new parts of towns that you just don't find in the City line.

Note: one of the first Friends sets was a science lab with a miniature robot.

[georgiegirl]

My 7 year old DD loves lego friends. She also plays with the regular city sets her brother gets and she wants some of those sets too. She recently used her birthday money to buy Olivia's House, and she and the neighbor boy (6) spent all afternoon putting it together. He's very jealous and wants the friends house too. The friends sets have so many cool pieces that aren't available in the city sets. I can see some sets are more "girly" than others (like the beauty salon), but many of the others (vet, cafe, treehouse) appeal to boys and girls. My kids are much more likely to fight over friends pieces than city pieces. I agree that the friends sets appeal to the type of play the girls like (role playing). I'm sure DD will want the girl minifigs.