Star Wars!

Next Saturday is Star Wars Reads Day!  I will be at the Homewood Library from 1:00 -4:00 doing awesome Star Wars stuff.  We’re going to have crafts, activities, games, and story time.  Adults are welcome.  Costumes encouraged.  We will have goodie bags for anyone who comes full of posters and books and awesome things that the publishers have sent me.

And, to celebrate here on my blog, I will be giving away a copy of Darth Vader’s Little Princess by Jeffrey Brown from Chronicle Books.  Click Here to enter the giveaway  This is the second adorable comic that posits Darth Vader as a good dad.  The first book, Darth Vader and Son was hugely popular and I adore both of them.  I’ve got two copies to give away and the contest is open internationally.

Here are some of my favorite Star Wars books:

Bonnie Burton is amazing!  And she makes awesome stuff and is on the internet in many, many places.  She even has a Geek DIY show on YouTube.  You should look her up – Twitter, her blog, Pinterest, Google+

Bonnie has done lost of Star Wars books, but the craft book is my favorite.  I made my Jabba the Hutt plushie for DragonCon based off her pattern.

R2D2 beeps in iambic pentameter.  Enough said.  Shakespeare’s Star Wars is really well done.  Verily,  A New Hope is something you should absolutely read out loud at your next party.  You do that, right?  It’s not just me and Joss Whedon, is it?

I’ll be honest, I haven’t actually read Razor’s Edge yet.  But… it’s about Princess Leia!  It’s an entire novel about Princess Leia set between episodes IV and V!  Entertainment Weekly has a preview if you’d like to get your Leia on in sample size.  I’m currently trying to get a Leia costume put together for Saturday.  Wish me luck!

Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn introduces Mara Jade.  She’s the only other woman kicking around until the prequels started.  I remember reading this book when I was twelve or thirteen and thinking, ‘She’s awesome!’  She’s a girl who can use a lightsaber.  Now that’s no big thing.  There are plenty of female Jedi and Sith.  But back then, in the 90’s there was pretty much just Leia and she wasn’t a Jedi.  Yet.  Don’t get me wrong, Leia was and still is awesome.  And she was a brunette, which was convenient for my costuming purposes.  But back in pre-school when we played Star Wars we had to invent a twin sister for Leia named Leah because there were two of us, but only one girl in the movies.  So, Mara made things more even although, by 1992 I was rarely playing Star Wars.  (Yes, I still was, but I like to pretend that I was cool).