Star Wars books

In honor of Star Wars:
My youngest resisted the book bug for some time unlike her older sisters who were voraciously reading at a similar age. She always enjoyed being read to but preferred Power Rangers on TV to power reading. One day we visited our branch library and saw a set of brand new, pristine Star Wars Junior Jedi Knights by Nancy Richardson and Rebecca Moesta (1998) on the "New Books" shelf. Traditional early readers never interested her but the idea of lightsabers and only 120 pages did.

We took them home and I offered to read them with her but she demurred. Several days later I found them next to her bed, no longer unmarred but well thumbed and creased. She had read and re-read those books dozens of times. The "chapter book" embargo was broken and she began to read on her own. She moved on to all kinds of fiction including, of course, the Young Jedi Knights series by K. J. Anderson. I was pleased to see kids reading this series recently which means they have held up well. All these books are about the children of Han and Leia.



A well worn librarian's mantra is "the right book at the right time with the right child and you will have a reader." This was certainly true in her case and to this day, I bow to the children's librarian who put those books in her path.

May the reading force be with you.