Darth Vader and Son

Today I will be reviewing a book that I'm sure you've all heard of. It's Darth Vader and Son by Jeffrey Brown. I read this book before it was cool. It's basically a compilation of really good one panel comic strips. Each one is usually Darth Vader reprimanding a 4 year old Luke Skywalker for doing something that little kids do like drawing on the wall or something. Sometimes it's just Luke asking Darth Vader a question he can't answer (like where do babies come from). I personally love the way that Darth Vader is turned into a responsible father and Luke is turned into a little 4 year old child.

There aren't any scenes in this book. But a panel I like takes place in the scene on Endor where a bunch of storm troopers are outside of the metal station thing and Luke talks to them through the window, except this time Luke is telling them that his dad tells him not to talk to strangers. I love this panel because it made me laugh so hard the first time I read it. I think it's the funniest panel in the entire book.

The drawing style in this book is the same as all of Jeffery Brown's other work. Very pencily. I loved this style in his other books and I love it now. I'm pretty sure that it was drawn with colored pencil. But I have a signed copy with a hand drawn picture and he used a marker to draw it so he could have used a marker to draw the book.

Darth Vader and Son Is completely appropriate for all ages. I'm sure that anyone with a good sense of humor can enjoy it. If you haven't seen the Star Wars movies there will be some references you won't understand, but I'm sure that won't be an issue. I also forgot to mention that there is a sequel to Darth Vader and Son called Vader's Little Princess, which is the same as Darth Vader and Son, but with a teenage Princess Leia. I think that Darth Vader and Son is the best adaptation of Star Wars to date and I would give it 91/2 toddler Luke Skywalkers out of 10.

Mercury

Today I will be telling you about a great book, Mercury, by Hope Larson. The plot of Mercury is extremely complicated. It's about a 15-year-old girl named Tara whose house burned down so she goes to live with her aunt, uncle and cousin. She meets a boy she likes and joins a cross-country running team. Something that kept me interested in the story is how every now and then, the setting will change to the house that burned down, but in 1859. When this happens, the main focus is on an ancestor of Tara's named Josephine who is also 15 at the time. Toward the middle of the book, Tara finds out that there is gold on her family's land that was left by Josephine.

This book had a lot of really good gripping scenes. One of them is a scene where Tara finds the gold. She and her friends are digging for the treasure when they find a small tunnel filled with snakes. She goes down into the tunnel using her phone as a flashlight to find a skeleton with a bag of gold in its ribcage. I really like this scene because it turns the plain, small town story into an epic treasure hunting story.

The drawing style in this book is very soft. It uses very thick wavy lines and I'm pretty sure that it was drawn with a paintbrush or a marker or something like that. The way the eyes are drawn is very pretty. They're big and shiny. I also like how Tara looks like a short-haired version of Josephine. It makes their bloodline connection seem even stronger.

I think that Mercury is appropriate for all ages, but I also think that less mature audiences might not enjoy it because the storyline is a little complicated. If you can take a complex story, you will love Mercury. I would give mercury 8 bags of gold out of 10.