• LEGO 41044: Macaw’s Fountain
• LEGO 41045: Orangutan’s Banana Tree
• LEGO 41046: Brown Bear’s River

The Friends line was Zoey’s entry point into the world of LEGO. She still enjoys them, but she also seems to have moved on to lines such as Super Heroes and Star Wars. Still, she keeps coming back to these animal polybag sets.

For our money, they’re some of the best polybags that LEGO puts out. They’re simple sets, and each is based on one animal. Some of the animals in previous series have also been found in other, larger sets, but many have been unique to these polybags.

With Series 5, all three animals are new (though I’m not sure the people at LEGO know what an orangutan is, since that’s clearly…not an orangutan. Though I guess you could argue that it’s a baby. Maybe.)

Specs: Macaw’s Fountain: 39 pieces and 9 steps. Orangutan’s Banana Tree: 37 pieces and 14 steps. Brown Bear’s River: 37 pieces and 13 steps. Each took Zoey about 15 minutes to assemble.

In addition to the animals, there are a few interesting pieces included.

The macaw set is the simplest of the group, but it includes the water fountain as a separate build. The cherries are probably the most interesting pieces here.

The orangutan set has large palm frond trees and a banana (which I adore). Plus, we love that the ape/monkey is designed to hang from the rubbery loop.

Another nice feature of this set is they included a long rod to go down the middle of the tree for support. The biggest complaint we have about LEGO trees is that they’re always flimsy and fall apart too easily. This one, though, is pretty solid.

Finally, the brown bear set has a cool mechanism where you can make the fish swim up the waterfall. We’d never seen that white connector before, and I’m not sure what other uses it could have.

Look out, salmon! The bear is right there!

There are a few extras in each set—but nothing too exciting. An extra “fish jumper” in the brown bear set and an extra green whip/monkeybar from the orangutan bag.

The Friends Animals polybags continue to impress, and all three sets in Series 5 are winners. Zoey gives them all two big thumbs up. And for about $4 a pop, you really can’t go wrong.