Epic felt

Three small board books … encom­pass­ing the first three Star Wars movies and a year-long craft project.

As I read each book, all 12 words, one word and one pho­to on each two-page spread, it slow­ly dawned on me just how inge­nious they are.

In those 12 care­ful­ly cho­sen words and scenes from the movie, Jack and Hol­man Wang, twin broth­ers and admirable artistes, man­age to evoke the entire saga of the first three movies. As a Star Wars-lov­ing par­ent , grand­par­ent (yes, the first fans are old enough to be read­ing to their grand­chil­dren), aunt or uncle, this is a clever way to com­mu­ni­cate across gen­er­a­tions, to bring your wee ones into the uni­verse of the Skywalkers.

Each word in the books gives read­ers an oppor­tu­ni­ty to talk about ideas such as snow, friend, kiss, father … all of the tru­ly big con­cepts in a young person’s life … and how they weave into the Star Wars saga.

If we still had bards, they would be regal­ing us with the epic tales of Tatooine and Alde­baran, the Jedi, and the Force. These books are an unpar­al­leled way to encour­age sto­ry­telling of tales that are sure­ly as famil­iar to mod­ern bards as Beowulf or Gil­gamesh were to audi­ences of old.

For fur­ther aston­ish­ment, each pho­to on the page oppo­site those words is as heart­felt and con­cise in sto­ry­telling as are the words. Made by nee­dle felt­ing, con­sid­er as well the scale mod­el­ing of the char­ac­ters’ sur­round­ings and the excel­lent pho­tog­ra­phy. This is artis­tic skill at its finest.

Jack Wang is an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor teach­ing cre­ative writ­ing at Itha­ca Col­lege. Hol­man Wang left the life of a mid­dle school teacher and cor­po­rate lawyer to focus full­time on cre­at­ing children’s books. The boys grew up in Van­cou­ver, British Colum­bia. Today, they live on oppo­site coasts, Jack in Itha­ca, New York, and Hol­man in Van­cou­ver. Their web­site is a must-vis­it.

In their own words, here’s how the books are made: “The pri­ma­ry tech­nique for mak­ing the fig­ures in Star Wars Epic Yarns is nee­dle felt­ing, which is essen­tial­ly sculpt­ing with wool. This is a painstak­ing process which involves stab­bing loose wool thou­sands of times with a spe­cial­ized barbed nee­dle. This entan­gles the wool fibers, mak­ing the wool firmer and firmer. It took us near­ly a year to cre­ate all the Star Wars fig­ures and space­ships in wool, build all the scale-mod­el sets, and do all the in-stu­dio or on loca­tion pho­tog­ra­phy. We even flew to Cal­i­for­nia and Ari­zona to find real desert to recre­ate the scenes on Tatooine! As life­long Star Wars fans, it was impor­tant to us to get the books just right. Think of Star Wars Epic Yarns as the ulti­mate, year-long craft project! It was def­i­nite­ly a labor of love.”

High­ly recommended.

Star Wars Epic Yarns: A New Hope
Jack Wang and Hol­man Wang
Chron­i­cle Books, 2015

Be sure to look for their oth­er clas­sic books, Cozy Clas­sics from Sim­ply Read Books, a cou­ple of which are pic­tured here.