We Build the LEGO Harry Potter Monster Book of Monsters: An Iconic Book That Actually Chomps

The new Monster Book of Monsters set has a lot of cool details on the outside that made it fun to put together, but it's what on the inside that makes it fun to play with after. LEGO provided IGN with a copy of the set for a test build and I got the chance to put it together myself. At only 518 pieces, I was able to build the whole thing in one evening before I went to bed and had my nephews playing with it the next morning.

Set #76449 is actually the second iteration of the LEGO Monster Book of Monsters. The first rendition was a Gift with Purchase (set #30628), called The Monster Book of Monsters, released back in 2020 with a lot fewer pieces and a more simplistic style. The newer Chomping Monster Book of Monsters looks a lot more realistic and includes actual chomping action. It also includes a Neville Longbottom minifigure that is holding a much smaller version of the book. It's a fairly easy build, but it was fun to put together and the chomping action was a nice touch.

The build is split up into four sections and you get one bag of LEGO bricks for each part. You start by putting together your little Neville Longbottom minifigure. He has two different face options to chooose from, so you can make him either smiley or terrified. I decided to go with smiley and placed him near the pieces as I put together everything else. The first part of the build is basically putting together the framework for the book.

This is the longest step in the whole process and it admittedly takes quite a bit of time until it really starts looking like something. You're building what will later become the chassis that your little chomping motor and wheels will later sit in, so it's important you get everything facing the right direction. It really helped me that you use red bricks to indicate the back and blue bricks for the front or I definitely would have made a mistake along the way.

It doesn't actually resemble anything like a monster book until you start adding some of the exterior pieces. There are light brown panels with a ridge that will look like pages once you're finished putting them together. The dark brown pointy pieces you add on the front and sides are what really start making it look like what you see on the box. You'll also add smooth panels on the back of each rectangle that will eventually fit together to form the entire base of the book.

The one thing I didn't particularly enjoy about this build was how repetitive it felt to build both sides of the book itself. There were some small differences between the top and the bottom of the book, but for the most part the build felt exactly the same. So it ended up being a bit repetitive to have to do basically the same step twice. That being said, it was extremely satisfying when I finally got to be able to connect the two halves at the spine. You thread a few long pieces through the back hinge and suddenly you've got what looks to be a hollowed out book.

The next portion of this build is where it really started to become fun. Once you're done with the overall structure, you move on to building the cover of the book. You start out with a series of large flat brown pieces that form the base of your cover. These are held together by two long flat pieces that are also thankfully color coordinated to indicate which side is up. Once you have the base assembled, you start adding all of the cool little details that bring the set to life. This includes the actual title of the book as well as the beady little eyes and spikey little feelers.

Once you snap the cover onto the top of your book frame, it starts looking like a legit Monster Book of Monsters. And while the cover is really the turning point, it's all of the additional details you add on after this that start to give it an air of life. As you build the frame and the cover of the book you will have added a bunch of what appear to be little LEGO arms near the front pages. These will become the holders for the book's spiny little teeth. There are twelve of these in total and once they're snapped in you can articulate them in whatever direction feels right.

The larger teeth get added after that, which is when it starts to look like it could actually chomp you. The instructions tell you to add one set of teeth at a time, but I decided to build them both first and add them all at once for dramatic effect. When all of the teeth are attached, you'll have what looks to be a Monster Book of Monsters that's actually capable of doing some chomping.

The final step of this set is the most interesting part. At this point you've built a fairly realistic monster book, but it's still an empty shell waiting for some internal components to get it running. Now you essentially have to build a working pull-back car that you place inside so it can get to chomping on its own.

The motorized aspect of this build is pretty straightforward, but it's a nice break from all of the detail work I had just done to be suddenly building a little wheeled car. It was also really fun to see how well the little car I'd just built snapped into place on the inside of the book itself.

After I fully put everything together, I immediately tried out the rolling chomping action. It's a neat trick that turns what looks like a display set into an actual toy you can play with. The roll-back mechanism only goes so far back, so it doesn't actually roll that far, but the chomping action makes up for the lack of distance. As it moves forward you can actually hear the teeth clacking together. I had both of my younger nephews play with the set afterwards and they enjoyed playing with it almost as much as l did. The gimmick wears off fairly quickly after you've done it a few times, but afterwards you still have a really cool looking set you can display somewhere.

The price of the set is fairly reasonable at $60, placing it well below some of the most expensive sets on the market right now. Any of the franchise-specific sets that come out are always going to be more expensive than a non-franchise set with a similar number of pieces, and this has consistently remained true for all LEGO Harry Potter sets. All-in-all, it's a set I'd recommend to any fan of Harry Potter and LEGO. It's a fun and simple build you can knock out in an afternoon, and the finished product would make for a great Harry Potter gift you can display on a shelf or your desk.