The Star Wars reading continues

There are so many options for kids and adults who love Star Wars stories. This one is subtitled “An Original Retelling of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.” Truth in advertising.

The story is told in the 2nd person, putting the reader in Luke Skywalker’s place. It’s an interesting way of looking at The Empire Strikes Back – the author is excellent at creating a sense of place and really allowing you to see through Luke’s eyes. He also has a sense of humor about the story, and fills in some of the subtext from the movie with plausible outside stories.

The best parts of the book for me were the Jedi Lessons. They’re between the chapters that tell the Empire story, and they’re lovely little lessons in mindfulness. My kid loved each one, and wanted to try each one as we were reading. It start simple, with Lesson Alpha: A Jedi Should Know How to Count. The lesson is to count to ten with your eyes closed, without thinking of anything else. It’s much harder than you think.

The lessons progress through doing something gross (because “as a Jedi, you can’t be afraid to do something because the people around you think its gross.”), to standing on one foot and keeping your balance while someone lightly throws stuffed animals at you (that was a fun one), to instantaneous meditation (close your eyes, smile gently, breathe in, breathe out, keep smiling, open your eyes – surprisingly effective).

There are two other books in this series, which I’ll be reading once I can convince my kid to stop making me read books about Lego minifigures. Those things are killing me.