By Jeffrey Brown
Star Wars meets middle school: a boy who wanted to be a pilot gets stuck at Jedi Academy instead, and tells the whole awkward year in his journal.
Roan Novachez has always planned to go to Pilot Academy like his dad and brother, so getting rejected feels like the end of the world, right up until a letter arrives inviting him to train as a Jedi under Master Yoda. The catch is that everyone else started years ago, so Roan is the new student who can barely lift a rock with the Force while classmates make it look easy. The whole year comes out in his journal: lightsaber gym class, a crush, a bully named Cronah, embarrassing droid mishaps, and slowly figuring out he might belong here after all. It is told in journal entries, comic strips, doodles, school newspapers, and Yoda's backwards-talking notes.
If your child loves Star Wars but freezes at the sight of a chapter book, this is the sneaky way in. The pages look like Wimpy Kid, all journal scrawl and cartoons and jokey school-newspaper clippings, so the actual reading is light and fast and never intimidating. Underneath the goofing is a real story every new student knows: showing up somewhere late, feeling behind, and finding your feet. And because it stars Yoda and lightsabers and the galaxy your child already loves, the familiar world does the pulling while the format keeps the pages turning. It is the first of a long series, so a child who clicks with Roan has years of it waiting.