Author: Virginia Holt Illustrator: Feito Medium: Picture book Publication Date: April 1986 Timeline Placement: 0 ABY
Another day, another Droids animated series tie-in. Unlike the four picture books we read previously, however, Shiny as a Droid contains a brand-new all-original tale of our favorite robots! Let's dive on in and see what wacky hijinks they get up to this time.
R2-D2 and C-3PO are trying to get to Tatooine aboard their gold starfighter, but there's bad news: they're out of the space crystals that fuel their ship! Fortunately, they just so happen to be on a planet where space crystals can be found in the depths of the deepest cave. Threepio must put a giant serpent to sleep by rubbing its belly, evade the grasping claws of a hairy green plant, stroke the paw of a furry four-armed creature to convince it to give them directions, and scratch and sniff an orange cave fungus to locate the crystals. Their starship refueled, the droids are finally able to take off and resume their voyage to Tatooine.
Like Heroes in Hiding, Shiny as a Droid depicts the droids operating independently from Luke, Han, and Leia, a fairly rare occurrence in the EU. This book shows them piloting their own ship on an interstellar mission, which as far as I know is a unique event. The post-ANH era features the Heroes of Yavin back on Tatooine for several adventures, so given no other timeline indications, some take Shiny as a Droid as the lead-in to those stories. Works for me!
This is one of two books in the Star Wars "Touch Me" series, which features interactive tactile features for children to feel, smell, or move. Sad to say that the scratch-and-sniff paperboard no longer works in my copy, leaving me to forever wonder at the scent of orange cave fungus. A rare and unique EU classic, highly recommended.
The droids examine what should have been retconned to be the technological successor to the Attack of the Clones-era Jedi starfighter.
Author: Christopher Nicholas Illustrator: Fabio Laguna and Marco Lesko Medium: Picture book Publication Date: January 2022 Timeline Placement: 0 ABY
Shortly after the Battle of Yavin, Luke, Leia, and the droids wait to hear back from Han and Chewie, who are on a mission to recover a mystical talisman rumored to have the power to turn things invisible. The Falcon returns, but Chewbacca is at the helm, while Han hangs upside down from the ceiling in the background. Luke and the droids hop in a Y-wing and chase after the Falcon, which Chewbacca crashes in the slime ocean of Panna Prime for some reason. Luke lands in the slime as well, and a friendly-looking sea monster immediately starts eating his Y-wing.
The monster is soon repelled by a man in Mandalorian armor riding on the back of a similar beast. Boba Fett has been an enemy of Han's for years, but this is his first encounter with Luke Skywalker. Frequently feckless, Luke is fast to fathom Fett a faithful friend and follows the fellow to the Falcon. Upon entering the ship, Luke immediately collapses, and Chewbacca hangs him upside down beside Han. Artoo and Threepio quickly deduce that the talisman was contaminated with a sleeping virus that has infected both of the Rebels, and the only way to keep them alive is to hang them upside down so all their blood goes to their brains.
Boba Fett says that the virus is an Imperial weapon he has encountered before, and he knows where to go in Panna City to procure the antidote. Chewbacca insists on coming along, probably because he knows who Fett is and is just pretending he doesn't recognize him so as not to rouse the bounty hunter's suspicions. The city is overrun with Imperial troops, so Fett tells Chewie to hide while he gets the antidote. Chewie reluctantly obliges, but after obtaining the serum from a random street vendor, Fett FaceTimes Darth Vader and tells him that all is going according to plan. He's earned the Rebels' trust and once he's saved the day, hopefully they'll invite him back to their secret base.
Back aboard the Falcon, Fett administers the serum to Luke and Han. Han is still too out of it to recognize his longtime nemesis, but Luke plays right into Fett's hands and invites him to return with them to the Rebel base. However, the droids reveal that they had intercepted the transmission from Panna City; Boba Fett is really Darth Vader's right-hand man! His cover blown, Fett blasts away with his jetpack, vowing that they will meet again. Threepio says that Chewbacca knew all along that Boba Fett wasn't to be trusted, because he just didn't smell right.
The Story of the Faithful Wookiee is an adaptation of the animated segment of the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special made more than 40 years after the cartoon originally aired. What's notable about this book is that the events of the animation had previously been seen only in the context of the Holiday Special, in which it is an in-universe cartoon that Chewbacca's son, Lumpy, watches on his space TV. However, it was repeatedly established throughout the EU that the events of the cartoon were in fact canon and had really happened to Luke and the gang. No I'm not kidding, here's an official realistic depiction of Boba Fett in his animated armor to prove it.
So in my view this Little Golden Book represents the first time the "real" version of the cartoon's events, the events that some in-universe animator later turned into a cartoon, has ever been seen. Apparently the cartoon changed practically nothing because the book plays out almost exactly the same. Luckily for anyone making their way through the entire EU, that means they get to experience the same story twice!
As revealed in "Time Capsule: Darth Vader 1980," a StarWars.com article, the talisman was a fake to begin with, a ruse planted by Darth Vader to draw the attention of the Heroes of Yavin so Boba Fett could infiltrate the Rebellion and capture Luke Skywalker, who by this point Vader had discovered was his son. Given that the original animation was the first appearance of Boba Fett in any Star Wars story, there was no long-established rivalry between Fett and Han Solo. Taking the later EU into consideration, though, it makes you wonder what Boba's plan was once Han had regained his wits. Was he just going to hide in the Falcon's bathroom for the whole trip back to the Rebel base? Jeez, he probably shouldn't have told Luke his real name then. Maybe he hoped that Luke wouldn't think to mention it.
Author: Uncredited Illustrator: Uncredited Medium: Picture book Publication Date: July 2011 Timeline Placement: 0 ABY
Han and Chewie are back in Mos Eisley on a new mission: a mission to avoid the cops! They're wanted by the Empire and Imperial stormtroopers are going around with wanted posters of their faces, asking if anyone has seen these women. They hotfoot it through an activity maze and blast off in the Millennium Falcon, but when a Star Destroyer starts chasing them they realize that the hyperdrive is broken!!! Han evades their pursuers by landing on a nearby green planet covered in lush and verdant forests, a planet that shouldn't exist within sublight travel distance from Tatooine according to everything West End Games told us about the Tatoo system. Maybe this is a previously unknown fourth planet in the system, or a moon we've never seen before. Seems like a good topic for a future Essential Atlas retcon, but oh wait Lucasfilm threw that entire universe in the garbage so we'll never get that now.
Chewie leaves to explore the planet while Han tinkers with the hyperdrive, completely oblivious to the platoon of Imperial troops surrounding the Falcon. Han is captured and dragged outside in handcuffs, thinking that he could really use the help of a Wookiee right now. His lips to the Force's ears, for suddenly Chewbacca reappears, bringing with him dozens of Wookiees who were just randomly living on that planet right next to Tatooine I guess. The Wookiees make short work of the stormtroopers and lead them away into the forest, presumably to be brutally dismembered out of sight of the small children reading this book. Chewie fixes the hyperdrive himself, thus proving Han a moron at repairing his own ship years before Rey did in The Force Awakens. Mary Sewbacca, amirite? As they engage the hyperdrive and set course for new adventures, Han racistly says, "I guess you are pretty smart... for a fuzzball!"
Watch out for the Wookiee is a story booklet that was included with the Millennium Falcon playset released by Playskool in 2011 as part of its Jedi Force toyline. Since this book gives no indication of when it takes place in the Star Wars timeline and is way too obscure to be referenced in any other EU sources that could pin down when it occurs, my thought has always been to add it to the vague chronology of Han and Chewie's pre-ANH adventures, alongside the likes of The Han Solo Adventures, Adventures in Hyperspace, The Wookiee Storybook, etc. Very few EU fans seem aware of this book's existence, however, and the only two fan timelines that I've seen include it stick it in the already overcrowded post-ANH period, presumably assuming that Han and Chewie are being chased by stormtroopers for their role in blowing up the Death Star. Given their established criminal history, I wouldn't necessarily assume that to be the only thing that could ever have landed them on the Empire's radar, but there are already a few post-ANH stories featuring Han and Chewie on their own, and I'm not one to rock the boat, so into the 0 ABY morass it goes.
Not much of interest about the story itself, but it can make a fine addition to your collection based on its obscurity alone.
"We don't serve their kind here! Your droids. They'll have to wait outside. We don't want them here."
– Wuher, A New Hope
C-3PO and R2-D2 hide from stormtroopers in various places after being kicked out of the Mos Eisley cantina. That's it, that's the book. It's ten pages long.
Okay, here's a continuity tidbit: the droids already know about Luke and Obi-Wan booking passage on the Millennium Falcon, which means this story can't take place immediately after Wuher kicks them out of the bar, because they hadn't met Han Solo yet at that point. After leaving the cantina to find a buyer for his landspeeder, Luke must have met up with the droids and tasked them with making their own way to Docking Bay 94. The book ends with Luke reuniting with Artoo and Threepio, who are hiding in the storage compartment of someone else's landspeeder, right before they all enter the docking bay together and blast off aboard the Falcon for "thrilling new adventures."
Picture book adaptation of a scene from the Star Wars radio drama, and then also part of A New Hope. As such it's another one of these books that doesn't have a truly original story and is thus skippable, but oh well, what the hell.
Luke Skywalker is alone in his room "listening to an audio tape about the Imperial Space Academy" when his friend Windy bursts in, catching him in the act. You remember Windy from the previous picture book featuring Luke that we read, Adventure in Beggar's Canyon, and how he was for sure a boy in that story. Well now he's a girl, making Windom Starkiller the first transgendercharacter in Star Wars. Except in some stories, where his name is Windy Marstrap. That's not misgendering because he is only she in this one book, then she's he again, and you are me, and we are all together.
Luke and Windy take Luke's skyhopper to meet the rest of the gang, led by obnoxious Internet tough guy Fixer Loneozner. Windy immediately rats out Luke for still listening to 8-tracks and Fixer bullies him mercilessly. Luke challenges Fixer to a drag race, but not the kind that Windy would be good at. Instead, they have to thread the Stone Needle in Beggar's Canyon, which means flying their skyhoppers through a big rock with a narrow hole going through it, which is like super dangerous.
Luke forces Windy to come with him and they win the race, but Luke smacks the wing of his skyhopper against the side of the Needle and has to make a forced landing again, just like he did the last time he and Windy flew through Beggar's Canyon. Windy jumps out of the skyhopper and takes off, saying "You're nuts, Luke, I'm getting out of here and stopping my HRT." Luke doesn't care because now that he's threaded the Needle he knows he's a good enough pilot to get into the Imperial Academy.
He goes home and has the same conversation with his aunt and uncle as he does in A New Hope, except a day early. "Where are you going?" "Looks like I'm going nowhere." I like to think this was a deliberate creative decision and they just keep having the exact same conversation about Luke staying on the farm over and over again.
The next day the Jawas come by and Uncle Owen purchases R2-D2 and C-3PO and the rest of the story happens pretty much the same way it does in the movie, up until the point where Obi-Wan Kenobi invites Luke to come to Alderaan with him. Instead of initially refusing the call to adventure then changing his mind after his aunt and uncle are brutally murdered, Luke just immediately agrees to join Obi-Wan without ever going back to the farm, and the book ends.
An interesting curiosity for the Windy gender mixup, but ultimately too derivative and inessential. Skip this book, but not this banger!
It is Chewbacca's 200th birthday and he and Han Solo are headed back to Kashyyyk aboard the Millennium Falcon to celebrate with Chewie's family. There is his father, Attichitcuk (Itchy); his wife, Mallatobuck (Malla); and of course, his lovable little fuzzball of a son, Lumpawarrump (Lumpy), who is one year old. Elderly pervert Itchy tells Lumpy the history of the Wookiees and how they originally traveled to Kashyyyk from another world, lore which was introduced here and remained in effect a quarter century later when it was referenced in Knights of the Old Republic: "The Wookiees have their legends that they were not always here, but it is more than that. The trees themselves are strangers."
Itchy then moves on to more recent history and tells Lumpy some of the heroic exploits of his father. Reptilian slavers (later retconned to be Trandoshans, although that species didn't yet exist when the book was written and the aliens in the illustration don't look quite the same) came to Kashyyyk and took several Wookiees, including Chewbacca, off-world to be sold. Han Solo and Chewie met when Han saved the Wookiee from slavery, an event referenced here for the first time and eventually depicted 21 years later in the Dark Horse comic series Chewbacca.
As Malla prepares a birthday feast for her husband, she laments that she doesn't have any wasaka berries to make wasaka-berry pudding, Chewbacca's favorite dessert. Inspired by Itchy's story, Lumpy decides to be a hero like his father and leaves the safety of his family's treetop home to search for wasaka berries down in the dangerous ground level of Kashyyyk, a place the Wookiees call the "Nother World," which is such a better name than the Shadowlands, as it's called in most subsequent sources.
Lumpy goes looking for berries and soon becomes lost in the Nother World. He is frightened, but he knows that his father would never give up and so neither does he, pressing onward to find the berries. Soon the horrible monsters of the Nother World materialize out of the shadows to investigate him, and Lumpy hides inside a hollow log.
Lumpy's trauma.
Meanwhile, Malla notices that her child is missing and sends a telepathic distress call to Chewbacca. The book makes sure to note that this is a power only adult Wookiees can use. Unfortunately, this is the only time any of them ever use it... except for in Michael P. Kube-McDowell's 1996 Black Fleet Crisis trilogy. When writing those books, Kube-McDowell submitted certain ideas he had for depicting Chewbacca's family and Wookiee society, but Lucasfilm said "No, you have to stick to canon" and they sent him The Wookiee Storybook in the mail. This is possibly the most influential Star Wars book of all time.
Chewie tells Han that Lumpy is in trouble. "Chewie, we must act fast," says Han, which sounds like completely natural Harrison Ford dialogue. Han uses the Falcon's "super-sensitive tracking camera," which is somehow able to show them a crystal-clear image of the Nother World, taken through miles of tree cover, the planetary atmosphere, and probably like thousands of miles of space. That's some camera.
Han sends Chewie ahead in one of their "explorer craft," a small one-person ship that the Falcon apparently has a complement of now. It takes Chewie exactly one minute to reach Kashyyyk, then an additional unspecified amount of time to descend to the Nother World at "planetary speed." Can't have taken as long as that fucking elevator from KotOR, that's for sure.
Wrong elevator.
Lumpy pops out of the log and Chewbacca pulls him into the explorer craft. Chewie is glad to see his son is safe but he's also pissed that Lumpy was so reckless. Lumpy starts to cry and says that he just wanted to be a hero like his dad by finding those damn berries. "Lumpy, you are a hero," says Chewbacca, presumably translated from Shyriiwook but it's still weird to read English dialogue from him. "Even when you were afraid, you kept trying. That is what makes a hero."
Chewie and Lumpy arrive at their family home. Literally hundreds of Wookiees jump out yelling "Surprise! Surprise!" which sounds like the most terrifying thing ever. Chewbacca was so distracted by his one-year-old's imminent death, he forgot all about turning 200! Han, Itchy, and Malla surround Chewie and Lumpy for a group hug and Chewbacca observes that he has everything he needs. "Except for the wasaka berries," says Lumpy.
And everyone laughs.
I absolutely love this book. Everything about it is so good, from the charming story to the beautiful and unique illustrations to all the off-the-wall and bafflingly persistent lore. One of the truly classic works of the pre-Empire Strikes Back era of Star Wars. Essential reading, highly recommended.
It's winter on Endor. Wicket goes to see Logray and asks the old medicine man if he can become his new apprentice. Apparently he didn't read The Adventures of Teebo or else he'd know that Logray already has an apprentice. Rather than tell him this, though, Logray just tells Wicket that he's too impetuous and sends him on his way. Later, Wicket sees Logray visiting his friend Latara, a young female Ewok. Latara has come down with some illness and Logray requires a fuzzynettle plant to make a healing potion for her. Fuzzynettles only grow on the far side of the forest, and it's too dark, cold, and snowy to venture that far tonight. The adults plan to set out in the morning, but Wicket wants to prove himself and help his friend, so he rides his pet bordok, Baga, out into the night.
Wicket and Baga soon wander off the snow-covered path and become lost in the woods, but Wicket realizes that he can navigate by the stars to find his way home. No longer concerned with being lost in the woods and freezing to death, he continues on, retrieves the fuzzynettles, and makes it back just as the adults are getting ready to leave. Logray makes the potion and Latara is completely healed. Logray confesses that he may have been the impetuous one, for Wicket has demonstrated the most important quality of a medicine man: a deep love and caring for his patients. He then takes Wicket on as his apprentice. Gee I hope Teebo won't be offended by that, but maybe he's too busy tripping balls to care.
Very short and completely fine. Does not fit well with the continuity of either the earlier Ewoks books or the subsequent comics but whatever.
The Ewoks are preparing for the Harvest Moon Feast, which may or may not be completely separate and distinct from the Harvest Festival they were preparing for in the last book. Princess Kneesaa finishes all her chores early so she can go outside and play, but on her way out she's waylaid by Mama Ewok, who foists her two woklings Nippet and Wiley onto Kneesaa to babysit while Mama Ewok bakes a pie.
Kneesaa sees Wicket passing by and asks for his help. Having repented for his misogynistic humor in earlier books, Wicket offers to take the babies fishing. Kneesaa packs a picnic basket and they all set off. On the way, Wicket keeps an eye out for rainbow berries, the Ewoks' favorite delicacy at the Harvest Moon Feast, but the crop is scarce this year.
Wicket tries to instruct the baby Ewoks in the intricacies of fishing, only to be made to look a fool when Nippet and Wiley dump every fish he catches back into the river when his back is turned. Having failed to catch lunch, the Ewoks settle for bread-and-honey sandwiches, which the babies enjoy by dumping honey all over each other. The Ewoks are then chased by an angry swarm of Nevoota bees and dive into the river to save themselves.
Exasperated, Wicket and Kneesaa dry off the babies and task them to play quietly and keep out of trouble while the two of them relax. Predictably, the babies soon grow too quiet, and Wicket and Kneesaa find them covered in berry juice. But wait! This berry juice is all the colors of the rainbow. Nippet and Wiley have found a patch of rainbow berries! They bring the berries back to the Harvest Moon Festival and are greeted as conquering heroes. Mama Ewok announces that from now on, Wicket and Kneesaa are the only ones she wants to babysit her kids. Strangely, the book doesn't end with Wicket and Kneesaa reacting to this pronouncement by looking at one another in slack-jawed horror.
These Ewok books just keep getting more and more childish, but Pat Paris's artwork remains really cute.
It's now fall on Endor and the Ewoks' Harvest Festival is coming up. All these little dudes do is have one festival after another, when do they ever get any work done? Not today, because while Princess Kneesaa is doing important things like weaving baskets, Wicket and Teebo decide to skip their chores and go hang-gliding instead. Kneesaa warns them that the weather forecast is not looking good but Wicket, having forgotten his lesson from the previous book, says that she is just too afraid to go hang-gliding.
The boys take the unsupervised gliders and have better luck than Teebo did the last time he tried this, but eventually it starts to storm and the Ewoks are forced down in a strange part of the forest. They take shelter in a cave where they complain about being lost and hungry.
Meanwhile, the adult Ewoks are cursing those lazy no-account good-for-nothing goof-offs Wicket and Teebo for shirking their chores. Kneesaa doesn't want them to get in trouble so she starts sending up smoke signals telling them to come home right away. After the storm passes, Wicket and Teebo venture out of the cave, see the smoke signals, and are able to follow them back to the village. Wicket apologizes to Kneesaa again (something he'll be doing for the rest of his life, as canon has them eventually marry) and the three friends have lunch.
Very obviously a book for little kids, still better than most of the prequel tie-ins.
It's the Ewoks' midsummer festival, and Wicket assures Princess Kneesaa that she's a shoe-in to win the basket-weaving contest because she's the most talented basket-weaver in all the lands. But Kneesaa already knows that she's good at basket-weaving; she wants to compete in a contest she hasn't tried before.
Teebo is confused to see Kneesaa in line for the archery competition. Wicket tells her that girls aren't any good at sports and she should get back in the kitchen where she belongs. Kneesaa immediately proves him right when her arrow misses the target completely and flies off somewhere in the woods. Jeez I hope nobody got killed.
Kneesaa then enters the vine-swinging competition, where Ewoks try to swing on a vine from one side of a river to another. But she sucks at this too and falls off the vine when she's over the middle of the river, landing atop a log that happens to be floating beneath her. She clings onto the log in terror as it races through rapids and over a waterfall. The current slows downriver and she finds a bunch of Ewoks standing on the riverbank congratulating her for winning the log-riding contest, a sport so dangerous that only the bravest grownup Ewoks participate in it.
I have to object to this, not only did she jump into the course way ahead of the other participants, she also wasn't doing any of the fancy footwork the other Ewoks were doing to keep their logs spinning while they were standing on them. She just lay on top of the log and let it go with the current. And Kneesaa's father, Chief Chirpa, is the one who awards her the medal! Clear nepotism going on here.
Wicket apologizes for his earlier misogyny, but you are not allowed to change and redemption is impossible, so Kneesaa mockingly tells him that maybe next year he'll win the basket-weaving contest, then she kicks him in the balls.
Cute little book and that's about all, but that's enough.
The Adventures of Teebo: A Tale of Magic and Suspense
Author: Joe Johnston
Illustrator: Joe Johnston
Medium: Picture book
Publication Date: April 1984
Timeline Placement: 1 BBY
Teebo is not like the other young Ewoks who live in Happy Grove on the Forest Moon of Endor. He can see ghosts and hear voices in the wind, and likes to spend his time his time sitting in the tops of trees, watching strange colors float across the sky. The other Ewok children think he's a fucking weirdo and don't invite him to hang out, but Teebo is too busy daydreaming about being a great hero and living in a perpetual acid trip to mind.
One day, a group of Duloks, genetic relatives of the Ewoks who live in filth and squalor in Endor's swamplands, come to Bright Tree Village to bring news that Teebo's little sister, Malani, has been taken by a horrible giant monster. Chief Chirpa rounds up his strongest warriors to lead the pursuit, leaving the village undefended. The Duloks spring their trap, throwing a toadskin bag over Logray's head so he can't use magic against them (???) and making off with all the children in the village, which they plan to eat.
Teebo, though, isn't among them, as he has stolen a hang-glider and set off to follow the warriors looking for his sister. Because he is so small, however, he is unable to work the glider's simple controls and has been set aimlessly adrift on the breeze. As it gets dark, Teebo notices a dragon-like mantigrue stalking him through the sky. The mantigrue attacks, causing Teebo to plummet through the treetops to the forest floor below. He is then chased by three Yuzzums riding nine-feet-tall spider mounts, but they abandon their chase when Teebo finds himself caught by the Grudakk, yet another giant humanoid species living on Endor, distinct from both the Phlogs from How the Ewoks Saved the Trees and the Gorax from The Ewok Adventure. What a nightmare it must be living here.
Sasageyo! Sasageyo! Shinzou wo sasageyo!
Teebo thinks the Grudakk is going to eat him, but instead it feeds him stew and makes up a little bed for him, then turns in for the night. Teebo resolves to stay up until morning and escape at first light, then immediately falls asleep because he's a small child.
Meanwhile, Chief Chirpa and his men arrive at the cave that the Duloks claimed was the monster's lair, but the only one they find living there is King Ulgo, the former ruler of the Duloks who was deposed by their new king, Vulgarr. The Ewoks realize that Vulgarr has tricked them, but when they attempt to free the sacred lantern birds that Ulgo has locked in a cage for his breakfast, Ulgo resists and is accidentally knocked from the cliff and killed when he violently smashes into a large rock in the river far below. This book for five-year-olds is awesome!
Back at the Grudakk's home, Teebo makes a run for it while his host is out running errands and happens to stumble upon the Duloks on their return trip from Happy Grove. With them, a cage containing all the Ewok children, including Teebo's sister, the supposedly monster-snatched Malani! I assume Wicket and Kneesaa must be there too but the book never mentions them.
King Vulgarr decides to eat Malani for breakfast, but Teebo stops him by hitting him with a rock. Just then, Chief Chirpa arrives with the cavalary and a fierce battle commences. Though the Ewoks are outnumbered, they fight bravely, killing many Duloks and driving others to break ranks and flee. With the Duloks distracted, Teebo manages to free the other children, but is caught himself by King Vulgarr. Vulgarr holds Teebo at knifepoint as he and the remnants of his entourage retreat into the trees, only to return screaming moments later as the Grudakk emerges from the forest.
As if by magic, Logray suddenly appears out of nowhere and reveals that the Grudakk is the guardian of the Father Tree, the tallest tree on all of Endor. Vulgarr has been rendered catatonic and frozen into a contorted shape. Logray orders the Ewoks to plant him ankle-deep in the soil so he grows into a tree that might provide shelter to some forest animals, the only good thing Vulgarr will have ever done in his life.
The Ewoks return home. Later, Logray finds Teebo sitting in his usual tree perch, watching all the colors of the wind. Feeling that he is reaching the end of his life and needs an apprentice to pass all his knowledge on to, Logray confides in Teebo that he can see the colors too, and says that he has much to teach him.
We have several more Ewoks books to cover, but given their page counts and titles (The Baby Ewoks' Picnic Surprise), I don't anticipate them living up to the unexpected level of quality found in these past two books. The Adventures of Teebo in particular is a revelation. It almost doesn't feel right to qualify it in the same media category as Gungan Trouble! or Star Wars Adventures in Colors and Shapes. Technically it is an illustrated children's book, but technically so is The Hobbit.
Not that those two are of a kind either, but The Adventures of Teebo is about 30 full pages of nothing but text. The black-and-white illustrations are few and far between, and the tone of the story is noticeably darker than one might reasonably expect of a Star Wars picture book. This book definitely trends closer tosomething like The NeverEnding Story or Return to Oz than Young Jedi Adventures.
Also notable is that this was both written and illustrated by Joe Johnston, the director of The Rocketeer and Captain America: The First Avenger, as well as other great adventure films from the 1990s and 2000s. A real Renaissance man!
One of my all-time favorite directors! (image unrelated)
The cover art was done by Jan Brett, author and illustrator of countless classic children's books, including The Mitten. The Adventures of Teebo isn't just a great and unique Star Wars story, it's also worth checking out for its creative pedigree alone.
Finally we've arrived! It's time for the E-E-E-E-Eeeeewoks. Everyone knows that the giant trees of Endor are sacred to the furry little Ewoks, but few know that the trees on the Forest Moon are the only trees in the galaxy that can talk. They speak in a voice that only the Ewok children can hear, however; it's one of those things you forget when you grow up.
One day, two young Ewoks, Wicket W. Warrick and Princess Kneesaa, are out in the forest picking berries when they discover two Phlogs, 60-feet-tall giant humanoids, trying to hack down one of the sacred trees with an ax. The Ewoks realize that the trees are calling to them for help. The trees tell them that the Phlogs come from Simoom, a deforested region on the other side of the Endor moon.
Wicket and Kneesaa relay what they've seen and were told to the elders of the Ewok tribe. Chief Chirpa, Kneesaa's father, believes that young Ewoks should be seen and not heard, but he agrees to take a scouting party in the morning and investigate, even though he thinks that Wicket is telling tall tales. Finding the adults intransigent, the children seek out Logray, the oldest Ewok in the village and the only grownup who can still hear the language of the trees.
Logray keeps to himself in his hut at the edge of the village and only receives visitors when the other Ewoks are in need of his knowledge of herbal remedies. Logray believes the children's tale and tells them another, passed down to him by his own grandfather from a time before any living Ewok was born. The Ewoks themselves were originally from Simoom, protected from the predatory Phlogs by the shelter of a small forested area surrounded by desert. When the Phlogs decided to build a castle for their king, they chopped down all the trees for lumber, forcing the Ewoks to flee to the other side of the moon in search of a new home.
Logray gives the children a special powder that they are to put into the Phlogs' food. It will make them forget about the new trees they have discovered and send them back to their people bearing a warning of superstitious dread. Wicket and Kneesa sneak out of the village early in the morning and return to the Phlogs' camp, but they are caught by the Phlogs and about to be eaten. Wicket tells the princess to throw her bag of powder into her Phlog's face. He does the same with the Phlog holding him, and both giants collapse in a stupor.
Just then, Chief Chirpa and his warriors arrive to see that the young Ewoks were telling the truth. They try to Gulliver the Phlogs with some vines but the Phlogs immediately break free, only to run off in terror, Logray's LSD having done its trick. Chief Chirpa makes Logray the official Medicine Man of Bright Tree Village, and Wicket and Kneesaa are made honorary members of the Council of Elders. Chief Chirpa declares that every summer the Ewoks will return to this part of the forest and celebrate their victory. The trees sing out in gratitude, and on this day every Ewok can hear them.
To be honest I never liked the Ewoks cartoon as much as Droids, but this book is amazing! It easily blows all the Droids tie-ins out of the water, as well as pretty much every Star Wars children's book we've read thus far. Newbery Award-winner Anakin's Pit Droid, what a classic!
The art and story are both completely charming, child-friendly without being low-effort or overly simplistic. How the Ewoks Saved the Trees is like the kind of book you'd read to your kids as a bedtime story even if it didn't say Star Wars on the cover. It's written by the author of Bunnicula, and there isn't a much higher stamp of quality than that. Wholeheartedly recommended to EU fans of any age.
Thirteen-year-old Luke Skywalker and his friend, Windy, who is definitely a boy (remember that for later), are bored on Tatooine. They decide to go for a joyride in Luke's T-16 skyhopper, maybe bullseye some womp rats, because that's a thing that was mentioned in the movie. Luke navigates the dangerous curves of Beggar's Canyon, but he clips a rock with the skyhopper's wing at a sudden turn and they crash.
Miles (kilometers) from civilization and without any food or water, the two teens aren't sure what to do, as Luke's AAA membership has expired. Some Jawas appear and attempt to scavenge the skyhopper, but Luke and Windy manage to shoo them away. I would have traded the scrap for a ride home in the Jawas' sandcrawler but that's me. Later, some Tusken Raiders come by to inspect the wreckage. Luke and Windy hide behind rocks until they're gone.
As the suns go down that night, Luke retrieves some sleeping bags and lanterns from the skyhopper (you had those ready to go but no emergency supplies?) while Windy finds a cave for them to take shelter in. Unfortunately, it turns out to be the cave of a krayt dragon! And not the stupid sandworm one from The Mandalorian, one of the ones that actually look like dragons.
This could be the end for them, but suddenly Old Ben Kenobi appears. He makes a gesture with his hand and the krayt dragon heads for the hills in terror. "Who are you?" asks Luke. "I'm Old Ben Kenobi," says Ben. So in Legends continuity I guess this is when they first meet, as far as Luke can remember.
The next morning, Ben takes the boys out to a herd of wild dewbacks and mysteriously causes one to approach them just by looking at it. They ride the dewback back to the Lars homestead, where Luke is excited to tell his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru all about his misadventures. When he turns to Ben, however, the old hermit is already receding back into the Dune Sea.
Later, Luke and Windy return to Beggar's Canyon with tools to repair the skyhopper. Luke isn't worried about the dangers of the desert, because he has a strange feeling that Old Ben will always be looking out for him. Then in the illustration you just see Obi-Wan standing up on top of the cliff watching the kids like a big creep.
Adventure in Beggar's Canyon isn't strictly an original story, because it expands on dialogue written by Brian Daley for the Star Wars NPR radio drama, but this is the first time those events were ever depicted. Peculiarly, the same scene from the radio drama was adapted again the following year as the comic Luke Skywalker's Walkabout, which told the same story in a completely different and incompatible way. As far as canon goes, I'd stick with the comic version, but this one is fine too.
R2-D2 and C-3PO have a new master: Mungo Baobab, of the Baobab merchant family of Manda! Mungo wants more than to be a simple merchant like his father, however; he yearns for the life of an adventurer! And since his family business is apparently in dire straits and the planetary economy is about to crash, now is the time to take bold action.
Mungo searches the Baobab archives for the location of the legendary Roon System, rumored to be a fabulously wealthy trading center that exports many rare gems and minerals. The Merchant Council rejects Mungo's proposal to open a trade route between Manda and Roon, so Mungo takes the droids in his ship, the Caravel, and sets off to do it anyway. Threepio is none too pleased with this course of action.
Meanwhile, Roon is under the thumb of the despotic Governor Koong and his insectoid lieutenant, Gaff. Koong is in cahoots with Admiral Screed, representing the Empire's interests in the Roon System. Despite appearing only as a villain in the animated Droids series, Screed is a somewhat significant secondary character in the broader EU, with his backstory and exploits fleshed out across several reference books and articles. That said, in this book he appears for like one page and is never mentioned again.
The Caravel arrives in the Roon System and is immediately captured by the titular Monster Ship, which is never referred to as such in the text or in the TV episode on which this book is based, "Tail of the Roon Comets." This is the only book in the Droid Adventure series where they changed the name of the episode being adapted and they don't even take advantage of it. "Look out, Threepio, the MONSTER SHIP is after us!" Never happens.
Aboard the Monster Ship, the gang meets Noop Yeldarb, which is clearly a tuckerization of Bradley Poon, and his menagerie of tribbles, I mean "mupples," who are also prisoners of Governor Koong, which is clearly a tuckerization of Gnook Ronrevog. Gaff has Threepio strapped to a table so he can perform invasive brain surgery and reset the golden droid to factory settings. But Artoo creates a smokescreen as a diversion and frees all his friends. "You've done a man's job, sir," Gaff congratulates him, "but are you sure you are a man? It's hard to be sure who's who around here."
Mungo, the droids, Poon Bradley, and the mupples all escape aboard a short-range cloudcraft as the Monster Ship explodes because the book's ending. Threepio hopes they will return to Manda, but Mungo happily informs him that with their current transportation they have no choice but to journey on to Roon. Then Threepio falls over.
The mononymous Amador returns to do the illustrations for this book, and they're quite lovely. The Monster Ship is a cool design and there are a lot of space scenes with deep and vibrant colors. As an adaptation, however, this book, the last in the A Droid Adventure series, is kind of strange. What happened to Governor Koong? Did he died on the Monster Ship? If the existence of Roon is a legend and people don't know if it really exists or how to get there, how is it also the hub of a thriving space trade economy and doing business with the Empire? And what of Admiral Screed? Why was he even mentioned in the book if he did nothing at all? Just don't even keep him in the adaptation.
Mostly, though, I'm just sorry that someone decided at some point that both the Marvel Droids comic series and the entire Droids animated series all took place within a single year. I'm not sure what the logic here was, as Artoo and Threepio are still out wandering the galaxy by themselves a good decade later in the Dark Horse Droids comics, so it's not like their adventures needed to be abbreviated for the sake of another story's timeline. There could have easily been a year between each arc of the cartoon so they weren't switching masters every other week. Spread that shit out. This whole paragraph is superfluous, I'll cut all this out.
An adaptation of the seventh episode of Droids, "The Pirates of Tarnoonga," the third part of a five-episode story arc. Picking up after Mon Julpa has reclaimed his throne, we find Jann Tosh and his droids aiding the new king of Tammuz-an with a space fuel delivery. Roving pirates have repeatedly intercepted all shipments of fuel to Tammuz-an, creating a crisis on the planet where they apparently cannot power a single spacecraft to defend their world. To trick the pirates, the latest fuel shipment has been hidden aboard "an innocent-looking skybus" while Jann flies cover in an A-wing. The droids are stationed aboard an empty decoy fuel transporter piloted by Jessica Meade, a badass tramp freighter captain who, as the female lead of these episodes, suffers the unfortunate fate of being repeatedly kidnapped and gooned over by various ne'er-do-wells throughout this arc.
Jessica Meade (left), alias "Old Iron Pants" because of her fat ass.
I know what you're thinking: how can Jann be flying an A-wing if, according to West End Games' Rebel Alliance Sourcebook, they weren't invented until after the Battle of Yavin??? Fear not, all is well, for Jann is actually flying an R-22 Spearhead, a starfighter identical to and colloquially known as the A-wing. Whenever you see what appears to be an RZ-1 A-wing in a story that takes place earlier than that vehicle should have existed, it's actually an R-22 Spearhead. Protip.
It isn't long before the decoy transport comes under attack by the fleet of the most notorious pirate captain of all: Kylo Ren! Jann proves utterly useless in his A-wing, I mean Spearhead, and he immediately surrenders when the pirates board the fuel transporter and Kylo Ren threatens his friends.
The gang is taken aboard pirates' flagship, the Dianoga, and brought back to their hidden base on the desolate ocean world of Tarnoonga. There, Kylo Ren ties Jess to a chair and forces her to sit next to him as he sentences Jann to be executed by sea monster. The next day, Jann and the droids are taken out to sea on a skiff, where Jann is thrown into the watery depths to be eaten by the dreaded miridon. "Artoo, do something!" cries Threepio, so Artoo headbutts him into the water as well then jumps overboard himself.
Artoo supplies Jann with a breathing mask and they manage to evade the miridon for a while before tricking it into getting its head stuck in the wreck of a sunken ship. Jann and the droids sneak back into the pirate base to rescue Jess, but she manages to outsmart Kylo Ren's mouth-breathing first mate, Jyn Obah, and escape on her own. Jann takes the droids and reclaims his Spearhead, distracting the pirates so Jess can get away in the fuel transporter and bring back help from Mon Julpa and Tammuz-an, provided the real fuel shipment arrived in time.
The diversion works, but the Dianoga quickly recaptures Jann's fighter in its tractor beam. Kylo Ren orders Jann to watch as he and his fleet attack Tammuz-an, while the droids are put to work in the ship's torpedo bay. Artoo sneakily loads one of the torpedoes into the launch tube backwards, which Threepio observes will backfire and destroy the entire ship when it's launched. The droids outwit their droid overseer and escape. They run into Jann, who has also escaped due to the confusion caused by the sudden appearance of a fleet of Tammuz-anian A-wings, I mean R-22 Spearheads. The fuel arrived, Jess is safe, and Mon Julpa has come to save the day!
The Dianoga starts to explode as its torpedoes backfire, causing C-3PO's leg to fall off. Jann and the droids take off in their Spearhead, where they radio their friends and everyone congratulates each other on a job well done. Threepio says something condescending, then his leg falls off again.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Not as enjoyable as The Lost Prince thanks to the more simplistic and cartoony art style (Carter Concepts ain't no Amador, that's for sure!), and the various false starts and foiled getaways make it feel a little overlong. Carter Concepts also drew Sollag Den instead of Mon Julpa, which is an unforgivable error in my eyes. Do all Tammuz-anians look the same to him? I do appreciate the art design of the pirate crew, though. The Dianoga is an original ship design, but it fields a squadron of Imperial TIE fighters with the dreaded "wampa skull" insignia emblazoned on their wings. The massive Jyn Obah wears what is clearly standard-sized stormtrooper armor that looks like a crop top on him, with the helmet perched on top of his head as a stylish hat. Clearly Kylo Ren's crew has scavenged materiel from the Empire. This is never directly commented on in the text, but it's a cool bit of silent worldbuilding to see standardized military equipment repurposed by this ragtag gang of irregulars. All of that is lifted directly from the cartoon though so I can't give the book any credit for it. All around, pretty skippable. I only wish I had.
An adaptation of the fifth episode of the Droids cartoon, the beginning of the series' second story arc. There are about a million retellings and partial adaptations of the six Star Wars films in the form of short illustrated children's books, and because there are already so many more substantial adaptations as well (novelizations, junior novelizations, comic adaptations, audio dramatizations, video game adaptations, manga, and so on!), I consider most of that cash-in kiddie stuff not worth bothering with. As with The White Witch, the reason I'm reading The Lost Prince, despite it being a straight adaptation of a pre-existing story, is because adaptations of Expanded Universe stories are extremely rare compared to adaptations of the movies, and the original illustrations commissioned for these books are wholly new EU artwork that deserves to be appreciated.
The A Droid Adventure series adapted only four of the Droids cartoon's fourteen episodes. An additional three episodes were adapted by Dragon Picture Books, but those feature no original artwork, instead simply reusing stills and screengrabs from the TV series to illustrate their text. As such, I've elected to exclude them from this reading list. Also, I couldn't find any of them on eBay.
Where The White Witch was a quick and breezy read, The Lost Prince is, bizarrely, by far the longest picture book we've encountered so far, and the one written on the most advanced reading level. The illustrations are much nicer than those in The White Witch, but also take up considerably less page space. The White Witch boasted several double-page spreads with a few lines of text at the top of the page, whereas The Lost Prince has several pictures that are condensed down to half a page or less. Some pages have no illustrations at all, instead containing multiple paragraphs of text that, while printed in a somewhat large font, fill the entire page from top to bottom. It's almost like reading a real book!
The tale of Mon Julpa, the lost prince of Tammuz-an, is one I've been familiar with since childhood, having rented the cobbled-together "feature film" edit of those episodes on VHS from our local video rental store many times in my misbegotten youth. This book marks the beginning of that epic tale, the fateful meeting of R2-D2 and C-3PO with Jann Tosh, a twenty-year-old miner working for his Uncle Gundy on the backwater world of Tyne's Horky. Jann buys the droids at auction, along with a mysterious Kubaz-looking android, to protect them from the abusive alien thug Yorpo Mog. Jann has bitten off more than he bargained for, however, when he realizes that the so-called android is really a mute Tammuz-an alien in disguise. C-3PO names him "Kez-Iban," a Bocce word meaning "he who has returned from death," except in this children's book, where it means "he who has returned from life's journey."
The dastardly crime lord Kleb Zellock, who in this book talks with a weird and annoying-to-read speech impediment that he did not have in the cartoon, is after Kez, who is actually a mind-wiped prince-in-exile deposed by his traitorous vizier. He and Yorpo capture the mute purple giant, and when Jann and the droids try to save their friend they are captured as well. Kleb puts them to work in his mine transporting Nergon-14, "the deadliest element in the universe" according to Threepio. This explosive mineral is used by the Empire in the construction of proton torpedoes.
Thanks to Threepio's quick thinking (and detachable limbs), the gang soon escapes, and are joined by Sollag, a Tammuz-an loyalist who returns the royal scepter of Tammuz-an to Kez-Iban, restoring his memories. The Nergon-14 is triggered by Kleb's mining equipment, and our heroes must make a quick getaway. Kleb tries to flee, leaving Yorpo behind to die, but Threepio accidentally causes Kleb to shoot himself with his own mini-stunner. Jann Tosh, C-3PO, R2-D2, Mon Julpa, Sollag Den, Yorpo Mog, and Kleb Zellock's unconscious bulk escape the exploding mine aboard Kleb's gyrocopter, but it can't handle the weight of its current load so the boys dump all the cargo Kleb had loaded. As they make it to safety, Threepio observes that Kleb is going to be very unhappy when he wakes up, as that cargo contained all of his shekels keshels.
This is an adaptation of the first episode of the 1985 animated series Droids: The Adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO. As such, it's not an original story, but I'm including it in this reading list anyway because it adapts EU-exclusive material.
Our story begins with R2-D2 and C-3PO already in the service of Thall Joben and his friend Jord Dusat. Thall and Jord are speeder racers whose landspeeder, the White Witch, may be the fastest ever built, or at least the fastest directly involved with this specific story. The only problem is, the duo have no way transporting the speeder from their homeworld of Ingo to the big speeder race on Boonta!
But while piloting the White Witch one day, the gang is attacked by a seeker drone. They manage to evade it, but don't evade the attention of a seventeen-year-old girl named Kea Moll. Later, after leaving Jord to work on the Witch, Thall and the droids are approached by Kea, who warns them that they blundered into the territory of the infamous Fromm Gang, and local gang boss Tig Fromm will be coming after them. They race back to the garage in time to see Jord being taken by Fromm thugs.
Thall wants to immediately give chase in the White Witch, but Kea suggests they wait until morning so they have better light. Thall rejects this idea, not because he's worried about Jord being tortured or killed in the intervening hours, but because the big race is tomorrow and he needs Jord ready to pilot the speeder by then.
They make their way to the Fromms' secret base and find Jord whining about being locked in a prison cell. Artoo cuts through the bars with his welding laser and they make their escape. Tig Fromm orders all his security droids deployed to stop the interlopers, but apparently the Fromm Tower Droids are programmed to attack anything they see. They open fire on the droid cruisers and all the Fromm droids destroy each other while the White Witch and her passengers get away.
Kea gives Thall and Jord a ride to Boonta on her spaceship, and all's well that ends well as Tig Fromm is taken into custody by the "space police." Threepio says something cowardly and everyone laughs at him, freeze frame, roll credits.
Cute book and very short, but I'd just watch the episode instead.
Tonight's Star Wars book is somewhat unique and calls for a different kind of introduction. "The Way of the Warrior," as you may recognize, is the first episode from the fourth season of the American syndicated science fiction television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, counting as the 73rd and the 74th episodes overall as it is a double-length episode. Michael Dorn joins the cast of Deep Space Nine as Worf, a character originating on the preceding series, Star Trek: The Next Generation.
But also, The Way of the Warrior is a Star Wars picture book from the UK where you could customize the story with your child's name and likeness. Additionally, you could select if you wanted your character to be on the light side or the dark side. At the completion of your order, your character would then be entered into the pre-written narrative, with good characters substituted for Anakin Skywalker and evil characters for Asajj Ventress. So to get the canon version of this story, we have to assume a default narrative featuring Anakin and Asajj.
Yoda has a premonition that an ancient prophecy made by the Followers of Palawa, an order of Force-sensitive practitioners of the martial art of Teräs Käsi, is about to come to pass. The prophecy, known as the Way of the Warrior, foretells that during a great conflict, a champion of light and a champion of darkness will compete for a valuable prize. Yoda selects Anakin Skywalker to be the Jedi's champion and sends him to the planet Bunduki to retrieve the prize, hoping it will help the Republic win the Clone Wars. Count Dooku somehow hears about the prophecy as well and sends Ventress as his representative.
The two champions seek out Derek Jeter Snahl, the local prophecy expert. They arrive at the same time and start fighting each other, so neither notices when Jeter is captured by Duros bounty hunter Cad Bane. Anakin and Ventress pursue Bane independently, chasing him from planet to planet and peril to peril, round the moons of Nibia and round the Antares maelstrom and round perdition's flames. At last it turns out that the real prize was the friends they made along the way. Cad Bane is like "wtf, I can't sell that" and he jets. Despite not winning anything, Anakin and Asajj have both won the day, because they can each be replaced by the person who ordered the book. Having wasted way too much time on this nonsense, it's time to return to the business of the real war...
There's not much to this book but the Followers of Palawa are a surprising EU deep cut that I was glad to see. Can't recommend the book based on that alone, especially since this is one of the rarest Star Wars children's books, and any used copies you might happen to find in the wild will have some random kid as one of the main characters. Kind of interesting and worth reading for the uniqueness of it, but the only money I'd pay to own it is whatever it costs to self-publish the canon version of the story.
