The DK Readers Star Wars books have been a real find for us. We have two Star Wars obsessed little boys at differing stages of learning to read, and to stumble across a set of books that they really, really want to read is such a bonus!
This book isn't quite what I expected from the title as I was expecting a story revolving around Jabba the Hutt. However, this book focuses upon introducing the reader to some of the main characters, and monsters, to be found in Star Wars The Clone Wars, (of which Jabba is one of course), and so is more of an informational book than a story. That said, this did not appear to diminish my little boy's enjoyment of it, but I have only given it four stars instead of five because I would have liked a slightly more cohesive story line.
I bought this for my son who is in Reception class and he loves it! It is a level one book, (described as beginning to read), which means: Simple sentences and limited vocabulary; Picture glossary and simple index; Adult participation helpful (according to the back of the book). Due to the nature of Star Wars there are some harder words, (especially names), in this book but they have kept the sentences as simple as they can whilst still making it a meaningful read for a little person. To give you an idea of the level of reading required an example sentence is: "General Grievous is in charge of a big army of battle droids". However, there isn't a huge amount of text in the book and, whilst my son required quite a bit of help the first few times that we read the book he is quickly getting fairly self-sufficient. The pictures are very good - they are taken from the cartoon and they complement the text nicely, so these in themselves are almost bound to entice any young Star Wars fans to pick up the book.
I would highly recommend this book, (and indeed the rest of the DK Readers Star Wars books), to anyone who is wanting to encourage their children to read something a little different outside school.
