Catch up with Star Wars Rebels!

If you are new to Star Wars Rebels, or just hungry for more Rebels while waiting for Season 3, check out a few terrific books you may have missed when they first appeared.

Obviously watching the season 1 and 2 episodes is top priority for getting caught up. Season one has been available for some time and season 2 will be released on DVD & Bluray on August 30 (N. America). 

Over the past two years many entertaining books were also released to expand the experience, particularly for younger fans. Here’s just a few recommendations:

Ezra’s Gamble is a middle-grade novel by Ryder Windham that introduces the main character Ezra before he meets any of the Ghost crew. What was his life like before Ezra met Kanaan and Hera? Find out in this book. Highly recommended! Our review here. 

Star Wars Rebels: The Visual Guide & Star Wars Rebels Visual Guide: Epic Battles  If you want to dive deeper into the details of Rebels, these books are your best bet! Loaded with full-colour pictures from the episodes and all kids of information from author Adam Bray you may not catch watching the show. 

Ezra’s Journal & Sabine: My Rebel Sketchbook are two books “written by” Ezra and Sabine themselves! Ok, not really (cartoons don’t usually write real-world books) but that’s the idea here and the reader can get inside the mind of the characters in a whole different way with these middle-grade books. Review of both here.

Draw Star Wars Rebels from Klutz Books is a great place to start if the show inspires you to create your own Rebels adventures. Step-by-step instructions and even comes with art supplies! Our review here.

Rise of the Rebels is a chapter-book retelling by Michael Kogge of the short videos released before the Rebels show premiered. You can see these shorts online and on the DVD or Bluray or enjoy them expanded upon in this book.

For younger readers Ezra’s Wookiee Rescue Book & CD is a shortened version of the debut special Spark of Rebellion, this storybook comes with a CD reading of the book along with music, sound effects and actors from the show. Very entertaining!

The Servants of the Empire series – In the first season of Rebels viewers met Zare Leonis, a young Imperial cadet with a secret agenda, who befriends Ezra in the episode “Breaking Ranks”. Zare hasn’t appeared much in the show since, but is the main character of the Servants of the Empire series of middle-grade novels written by Jason Fry.

Do you have a favourite Star Wars Rebels book, toy or game? Did we miss something awesome? Post a comment below!

Create a Rebellion with Draw Star Wars Rebels

Draw Star Wars Rebels will guide young artists of almost any skill level to draw the main characters of the fantastic Disney XD show. This spiral-bound activity book is great for budding young artists like Star Wars Rebels' Sabine.

You may be tempted to just follow the pictures in a book like this, but side-notes, tips and comments throughout offer an extra layer of help. Even though this is a Klutz book (which usually means more DOING than reading), make sure you stop and read along the way.

With illustrations by Star Wars artist Grant Gould and instructions by "the editors of Klutz" this is a fun way to practice basic concepts, figure drawing and polishing your work into clean, professional-looking artwork.

There's a section at the back for drawing the Ghost and TIE fighters but like the earlier Draw Star Wars The Clone Wars the focus here is on drawing full body characters and action poses. Starting with stick figures, the steps guide you to build from there giving your characters dimension, weight and form. Eventually it moves to details and shading.

Just as with the Clone Wars one, I would've liked to also see some pages about creating facial expressions and close-up details, like how to do Sabine's helmet and armor or the markings on Zeb's fur, for example. The small pages don't really allow for that. However Draw Star Wars Rebels is a great place to start and it comes with quality drawing supplies to get you going.

Publisher's description:
This latest addition to our Star Wars book series is a how-to guide packed with expert tips, simple techniques, plenty of draw-right-in-the-book space, and translucent overlays to make you a master of drawing. Start with stick figures, move onto basic shapes, and finish up with the details. This sketchbook comes with everything you need, and we also include perhaps the most essential tool for any artist… an eraser. Because sometimes even a Jedi Master could use a do-over.

Comes with: 90 page book, 6 sheets of vellum tracing paper, mechanical pencil, black marker, 3 dual-tipped metallic colored pencils, block eraser

Here's our reviews of other creative Klutz Star Wars books:

Star Wars Folded Flyers
Star Wars Thumb Doodles

Star Wars Kidscast Gift Guide for Younglings & Padawans: Part 2 "Star Wars Reads"

Got a few younglings or Padawans on your Christmas list? Here's Star Wars Kidscast's recommendations for gifts big and small.

Ages 8 & Up 

Enjoy the Star Wars movies in a whole different way, anytime and anywhere. For each Star Wars film there's a junior novelization of the whole story, written at an age-appropriate reading level. A strong young reader may want the "grown-up" versions, but most kids would do better with these. (Scholastic Books)

Star Wars Complete Vehicles - Gathering the best of several Incredible Cross Sections books into one beautiful coffee-table sized hardcover book. If your younglings are as into visuals and details as reading then this is an amazing book. (DK Books) Read our review here

 Origami Yoda series by Tom Angleberger: Set on Earth in the present day, these funny and occasionally touching Star Wars-infused novels will entertain many older kids and even adults!  There's a new book coming in Spring 2014 but a great start would be the first four books in this box set: The Origami Yoda Files.

Included are The Strange Case of Origami Yoda (2010), Darth Paper Strikes Back (2011), The Secret of the Fortune Wookiee (2012) & The Surprise Attack of Jabba the Puppett (2013). (Abrams/Amulet Books)

Star Wars: Ewoks - Shadows of Endor : Fun, fast-paced story to engage Star Wars fans young and old. Endor never looked this good or was this exciting in comics! (Dark Horse Books) Read our review here 

Fun fact: Shadows of Endor artist/writer Zack Giallongo was the first guest ever on the Star Wars Kidscast podcast! Have a listen here!

Star Wars Folded Flyers - You gotta know when to fold 'em...An activity book that takes paper airplane-making to a whole new level, and a whole new Galaxy! (Klutz Books) Read our review here







More gift ideas to come including Clone Wars books, Young Reader books, clothes, toys & stocking stuffers!

Read, You Must: Draw Star Wars: The Clone Wars

If you're a young artist and fan of the the (sadly) now-cancelled The Clone Wars TV series, this spiral-bound activity book is for you. With illustrations by Star Wars artist Grant Gould and witty instructions by "the editors of Klutz" and Bonnie Burton this is a fun way to practice using basic art concepts, figure drawing and polishing your work into clean, professional-looking Clone Wars art.

You may be tempted to just follow the pictures in a book like this, but cheeky side-notes, tips and comments throughout offer an extra layer of fun in what could've been a pretty straightforward instructional book. So even though this is a Klutz book (which usually means more DOING than reading), make sure you stop & read along the way. Even the credits at the back are pretty funny!

The focus here is on drawing full body characters and action poses. You start with stick figures and build from there giving your characters dimension, weight and form. Eventually it moves to details and finished artwork. I would've liked to also see some attention to creating facial expressions and close-up details, like how to do Ahsoka's facial markings correctly or Plo Koon's mask for example. However this is a great place to start and it comes with quality drawing supplies to get you going. Hopefully we'll see a similar Star Wars Rebels drawing book when that show comes out!
Available online or in most book stores!

Publisher's description:
Draw Star Wars®: The Clone Wars™ is packed with tips and techniques, practice space to draw right in the book, and translucent overlays to make you a master of drawing. Start with stick figures, move onto basic shapes, and finish up with the details. Learn to draw 20 different Clone Wars characters. Age Range: 8 and up, Grade Level: 3 and up
Comes With: black marker, 3 double-tipped metallic colored pencils, always-sharp mechanical pencil, eraser

Also by Bonnie Burton:
The Star Wars Craft Book (LucasBooks 2011)
You Can Draw: Star Wars (DK 2007)

Read, You Must: Star Wars Folded Flyers

I have to admit, my paper airplanes usually look cool but would probably fly farther if I just crumpled the paper and tossed them like a baseball. Along comes Benjamin Harper and "the Scientists of Klutz Labs" to offer up Star Wars Folded Flyers, a book of fold-able templates to help you not only make better flyers, but man they look great too!

Like other Klutz titles, this is an activity book with far more to DO than to read. The book is divided into two sections: the first is the glossy description, tips & instruction pages that are a lot of fun, give a little background info for each starfighter and even some info for the related characters. Seeing what is basically Darth Vader's driver's license was a highlight of this section.

The second half is pre-designed template sheets for you to pull out and fold. What's great is you get several copies of each ship in case you make mistakes or more likely in case you have 4 kids who ALL want a Millennium Falcon! And they might, because the artwork is wonderful and incredibly detailed.

The book comes with an "Ages 8 & up" suggestion and it is very accurate to my experience. While I found the instructions refreshingly straight-forward, the only child who was able to do most of the folding himself was 8. If your kids are younger, be prepared to do pretty much all the folding yourself.

Most of the starships included look great when folded and some look just ok. The TIE Advanced X1 (TIE fighter) looks a little too much like a toilet-paper roll with wings. The X-wing and Jedi Starfighter looked the best.

There are ships from all across the Star Wars film saga. When folded carefully they look great (mostly) and fly pretty well. For the price of 1 plastic Star Wars toy (and I have nothing against having more toys!), consider this alternative that involves both fine AND gross motor skills, assuming your kids do some folding, and you don't get caught up having fun doing all the launching yourself!

For more info, visit the Klutz website here. 

Here's a cute video of a mom & son building the Millennium Falcon : http://youtu.be/eLFGhRw6IUs

Read, You Must: Star Wars Thumb Doodles: The Epic Saga at Your Fingertips

Star Wars Thumb Doodles is not a book to read exactly but an activity book to DO. From Klutz comes this fun and silly art book for young artists of nearly any skill level.

The concept is simple: you make thumbprints or fingerprints using the included (ink-luded?) ink pads, then use the supplied marker and the very cool double-sided lightsaber pencil crayon to add details. With a little practice your prints can become Star Wars characters and vehicles. Various movie scenes are recreated in black & white as simple but effective backgrounds.

The colours included seem limited at first but you can go pretty far with this small palette. The drawing style of the sample illustrations is simple enough that the children who tried it with me had no problems creating characters. We had fun making cartoon-y versions of Ewoks, Yoda, Darth Vader, Jabba & AT-AT walkers.

The characters and scenes in the book highly favour Episodes 4-6 with only brief appearances by some from the Episodes 1-3. The kids using it with me wanted to know where Anakin and Padmé were. Good question.

Some of the pictures are quite funny like "Really Young Yoda". Some characters work much better than others in this form. Ewoks look great for example, but others like C-3PO & Chewbacca look unrecognizable unless you can add a lot with the marker.

One thing not really stressed in the instructions is that you need to wait for the ink to dry before adding detail, or turning the page. Some kids were more patient than others! Any complaints are minimal as we had fun with this book, several kids wanted to know where I got it (most book stores carry Klutz/Scholastic titles) and I was happy the ink washed off my fingers with ease!

(Only slightly) Stained thumbs up!

For more info & images click here