Thursday, March 13, 2014

Read, You Must: Jedi Battles and Sith Wars

DK publishing introduces a new line of young reader books called DK Adventures and starts well with a pair of new Star Wars titles: Jedi Battles and Sith Wars.

Each digest-sized book is 128 pages - a little smaller and much thicker than the popular DK Readers books - and intended for “confident readers”. They are both FULL of gorgeous movie images spanning the Star Wars movie saga, and occasionally borrow art and diagrams from other DK books like the Incredible Cross-Sections titles.

Like many DK titles the two books are written “in-universe”. There’s no mention that these are about movies at all. Each page spread has a new heading and then the text focuses on that element, like in Sith Wars there are spreads about Darth Vader’s armour, Sith artifacts, Order 66 events & Dark Powers. There’s also pages about various other villains in Star Wars like Boba Fett and Jabba the Hutt.

That leads to one small complaint: the titles make little sense. Based on what’s inside, the books should’ve been called something like Star Wars: Good Guys and Star Wars: Bad Guys or perhaps Light Side and Dark Side. However it’s what’s inside that counts and inside is jam-packed with all sorts of cool information for a curious, detail-oriented young fan.

Recommended for any young reader who’s enthusiastic to take a closer look at the Star Wars saga. Here’s a sneak peek at What Makes a Monster? the next book in the series, due out April 21, 2014.

Further reading: Stronger young readers (and grown-ups) may enjoy Daniel Wallace’s fantastic in-universe guide books like The Jedi Path and Book of Sith.

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