Stuff I Read - Star Wars: Jedi Academy: Return of the Padawan by Jeffrey Brown Review
Picking up at the start of Roan's second year at the Jedi Academy, this volume of his story is full of very sophomoric problems. There are misunderstandings with friends, and bungled projects, and some slights slips toward the dark side, but like most books geared toward kids, the hero emerges on the other side stronger than ever, and with some good experiences to show for it. Of course, thrown into the mix are a number of Star Wars references and visuals and characters. The little asides alone would make this book worth picking up, though it never seems to quite live up to its full potential, instead treading over the same trails as many other books, but with Star Wars there to give it a fresh feel.
I will admit that I chuckled a number of times while reading this book. As an adult the main storyline is not exactly the most interesting. Roan deals with bullying, accidentally offending his friends, and coming off like a jerk a number of times, and that's all fine. It's just not very interesting to me, because it's the plot of most school stories. After winning his friends in the first book, they must have their squabbles and eventually overcome them. it was all tied up in a bow at the end, despite there not being all that much time for a satisfying resolution. Much more worth it were the mentions of Yoda spending the summer rummaging through cabinets or the Hutt representative to the Senate. Small moments like that were great and part of me thinks this might have been better for me as a comic strip series instead of a book.
Of course, the art is great and seems more suited to comic strips than comic books. The faces are comical and expressive, and the backgrounds simple and not as important. For a Star Wars book that was slightly disappointing, because the settings are what give the universe it's character, but in this case the actual characters did the job nicely. Teachers and students were pulled from all over the Star Wars universe, and it was fun to see them all. The book also blended in non comic sections, like posters or diary entries or report cards. It made for an interesting experience, and I think the tactic was successful in being able to have more exploration of Roan's feelings while not making this an actual novel or chapter book.
And in the end the book is quite fun and funny. It has its charm and its love and respect for Star Wars, and those things make it a good read. The villains are a bit flat, but the main character and his friends, and even the teachers, seem complex and that was a welcome aspect of the story. And this is a story for kids, after all. As such it succeeds in what it sets out to do, but it doesn't do much more than that. For adults it might be a fun and light bite of something Star Wars, but it seemed to me to be much more for the kids, and so I'm giving it a 6.75/10.