Publisher: Chronicle Books
Release Date: August 21, 2019
Price: $14.95
Creator: Jeffrey Brown
Format: 64 pgs., Full-Color, 7"x7", Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-4521-8043-4
Age Rating: N/A
ICv2 Rating: 3.5 Stars out of 5
Jeffrey Brown has been making quite a career of doing cartoons and humor based on Star Wars. The ones based on the question of "what if Darth Vader hadn’t been such an absentee father?" were delightful and zany. The thing is, though, that classic Star Wars is so much a part of fan-ish culture that the original generation of fans is now showing their grandchildren the films, on really big screen TVs at home. The new generation of films is just not as iconic, and that creates a weakness in this volume of clever cartoons. They are at their best when the reader of the book is as caught up in the new Star Wars films as a couple of generations have been with the original ones, and that’s a difficult thing to ask. If you have to stop and think about a character or a name used in a gag, then the moment of humor may have passed, and that happens in this collection.
The cartoons are funny, but they are not as tightly focused as in some of the earlier collections. They are mostly jokes about the new Star Wars characters as children, and some are much funnier than others. This is the kind of book that you would buy to give to someone that you know is a huge fan of the newer Star Wars movies, but that can have a sense of humor about some other goofy Star Wars references. Yes, there’s even a Jar-Jar joke in the book.
For teens and adults who are Star Wars fans.
--Nick Smith: Library Technician, Community Services, for the Pasadena Public Library in California.