Star Wars: A New Hope (Studio Fun International) by Ryder Windham
Star Wars: A New Hope (Studio Fun International) written by Ryder Windham, illustrated by Brian Rood
This book is an absolutely beautiful children's story book adaptation of A New Hope. It deftly covers all the most important story beats and includes a vast majority of the dialogue. I was highly impressed!
The only thing that was lacking was the final battle between the Rebels and the Death Star. It simply says, "The battle was hard-fought. Soon, only Luke and a few other rebel pilots were left." And then it goes straight into Luke being the one going after the "shot"...and spends a good deal of time on this I might add.
The whole book took me about 15-20 minutes to read and flowed so well that it seemed like no time. I'm not so sure about children's attention spans these days, but this might be a great book for a bedtime story if they can stay awake long enough. Even if not, it could easily be picked up for further reading another night.
Brian Rood's artwork is simply gorgeous as evidenced by the two photos below: 1) an eerie washed out image of the Lars homestead after it was ransacked by stormtroopers, 2) Luke and Leia swinging across the chasm in the middle of the Death Star with Luke's face in a grimace of exertion. And the cover is holographic-shiny with a cut-out featuring R2 and 3PO on the page below. The whole package is truly well worth owning.
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I will be reviewing the rest of the books in this series over the next couple of days, Empire Strikes Back on Saturday and Return of the Jedi on Sunday!
The only thing that was lacking was the final battle between the Rebels and the Death Star. It simply says, "The battle was hard-fought. Soon, only Luke and a few other rebel pilots were left." And then it goes straight into Luke being the one going after the "shot"...and spends a good deal of time on this I might add.
The whole book took me about 15-20 minutes to read and flowed so well that it seemed like no time. I'm not so sure about children's attention spans these days, but this might be a great book for a bedtime story if they can stay awake long enough. Even if not, it could easily be picked up for further reading another night.
Brian Rood's artwork is simply gorgeous as evidenced by the two photos below: 1) an eerie washed out image of the Lars homestead after it was ransacked by stormtroopers, 2) Luke and Leia swinging across the chasm in the middle of the Death Star with Luke's face in a grimace of exertion. And the cover is holographic-shiny with a cut-out featuring R2 and 3PO on the page below. The whole package is truly well worth owning.
There's not really all that much to say because we already know this story so well, but, OH! the Imperial officer who says, "Lord Vader, an escape pod was jettisoned during the fighting, but no life-forms were aboard." is Commander Praji--so there's one fun trivia fact!
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As for other works by Ryder Windham, check out my reviews of these wonderful junior (chapter book) adaptations of the OT:
This man definitely knows his OT backward and forward, so if you want to know more about this era, I highly recommend checking out these junior adaptations and the book reviewed above!---
I will be reviewing the rest of the books in this series over the next couple of days, Empire Strikes Back on Saturday and Return of the Jedi on Sunday!
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