This post from the ZRecs Archives was originally published on November 29, 2007.

Our family has had a lot of fun playing with Bonz, a recent competitor to Kid K'Nex that takes a cue from the classic Cootie game I loved as a child and turns it into a range of bizarre creature-construction kits in a variety of themes. Unlike K'Nex, which prides itself on an orderly arrangement of connection options that make the toys versatile and capable of complex construction projects, Bonz tubs distinguish themselves by the sheer variety of odd and malformed parts, some suggesting specific body parts and others truly bizarre, spicing the mix up with textures, patterns, and ball-and-socket joints. The pieces have an alien, primordial sensibility in that many parts are of indeterminate utility and many of the more standard-shaped ones have odd numbers of irregularly-spaced holes spread over their surface. In this sense, Bonz are not only postmodern but post- many other things besides, as true to our age of genetic engineering and the blending of biology and robotics as Lincoln Logs were to the wild-frontier-loving 1950s.



Unlike in the virtual world of video games, where modernist, mechanistic model has long since been displaced, in real-world manipulative play K'Nex still offer the most opportunities for older children. But Bonz are better at capturing the imaginations of toddlers and young learners, who find their fantastical and whimsical piece designs the perfect accompaniment to exuberant and distractable imaginations founded on inspiration rather than careful planning.

We got the Bug Bonz and Dragon Bonz kits to sample. There are also glow-in-the-dark Bonz, dinosaur Bonz, sea life Bonz, flying things' Bonz... you get the picture. The best thing about the system is that all the parts are interchangeable between themes, so you can get quite a crazy set of creature parts with multiple kits.



Bug Bonz are specifically designed for kids ages 2-5, with easily put-together parts. The Dragon Bonz are rated for ages five and up, and some of the pieces were a tighter fit or snap into place and require a bit more strength to unlock them, but Z still had lots of fun playing with us with them. What we originally envisioned as a fairly straightforward or directed building experience turned out to be very open-ended when looked at through the eyes of a three-year-old. The key is that each piece is highly specialized and awkward, but all of the pieces fit together in myriad awkward, and sometimes elegant ways. The net effect is an "anything goes" building style that results in some really wild creations. We agree with manufacturer Curious Toys that these toys really don't have an upper age limit.



These kits are not cheap - the 21-piece Bug Bonz kit costs around $25, and the 55-piece Dragon Bonz set costs over $30 - but keep in mind that the pieces are hard plastic, that there are a huge array of specialized piece types, and that they come in a huge range of colors and paint effects. In other words, we can see where the money went. As a nice touch, the older kids' kits come with fishing line and a special kind of part to thread it through to create hangers for finished masterpieces.

You can purchase Bonz from Amazon.com.