“Star Wars Creatures Big & Small” Poetically Delights
Star Wars Creatures Big & Small is a book that oozes with fun and is fun for both parents and children alike.
Hhitting bookshelves on October 1st, Star Wars Creatures Big & Small discusses thirty different creatures found in both movies and television shows.
Publication Information
Written by Calliope Glass and Caitlin Kennedy, with illustrations by Katie Cook, this book has a similar feel to ABC-3PO – a previous collaboration of theirs. We discussed that adorable book on Skywalking Through Neverland episode 126. Published by Disney Lucasfilm Press, Star Wars Creatures Big & Small is filled with 26 poetic presentations about 30 creatures found in the Star Wars universe, book-ended by an introduction and conclusion by Yoda. The book closes out with a really fascinating and cool comparison of all of the creatures in the book by size, going from smallest to largest (which is also how the book presents them).
Poetic Descriptions
The pages within this book poetically delight, as Glass and Kennedy use playful descriptions directed towards a younger audience. With a 5-8 years old target audience, my 5-year old daughter enjoyed my reading it to her. She got excited about all the rhymes! One aspect that I enjoyed was that the rhyme schemes changed throughout the book, using not only four stanza rhyming schemes, but even three and five stanzas. The variety offered playful changes of reading paces.
Creative Fun
In a recent interview with Katie Cook, Cook shares her enthusiasm for working on this book: “I have a special place in my heart for all the illustrations in this book that are of things that aren’t traditionally adorable but I got to make them cute. The rancor is one of them… I mean, look at him! I just want to pinch his cheeks. This is the probably the page I would use as an example of, ‘You can make anything weirdly cute if you try hard enough!’”
Describing the varactyls, Cook further described in her interview, “Coloring the page was fun because so much of Star Wars tends to be, well, brown. The varactyls are a chance to play with color with no limits.”
Conclusion
Star Wars Creatures Big & Small is a book that oozes with fun and is fun for both parents and children alike. I was even surprised by a couple of the names of some of the creatures, which I found to be helpful in learning some of their names (e.g. kaadu). This book makes for a helpful resource for not only kids, but even adults as somewhat of a mini-encyclopedia, but in a very playful and approachable way. Hitting shelves on Tuesday, October 1st, this book will be sure to delight.
Disclosure: Review copies were provided to Skywalking Through Neverland for review purposes.
About the Author
Drew Kaplan enjoys Star Wars; his writings may be found on his Star Wars Maven website, as well as other Star Wars-related content on his social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
