Return of the Jedi: Three Cheers for Kneesaa!: An Ewok Adventure

Three Cheers for Kneesaa!

Author: Jane E. Gerver

Illustrator: Pat Paris

Medium: Picture book

Publication Date: May 1984

Timeline Placement: 1 BBY

 

Alternate title: The Ewoks Get Sexist.

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.