Star Wars Meets Shakespeare {Book Review}

Our Star Wars infatuation is not a fleeting crush. Call it a full-blown obsession. And it afflicts all four of us.

I remember seeing the originals in the theatre when I was a kid. Now, we own all of the DVDs and they are well-watched and still beloved.

Each May the 4th, the boys participate in Jedi Night at a local community center. They are tireless fans.

For Halloween a few years back, R and J built an R2 costume out of completely recycled and reused materials. I had to survive without my yoga ball for a week while they paper mached R2's 'head' out of my ball. As you can imagine, R won the costume contest at school that year.

And in the years since, he's been a Jawa and a TIE fighter pilot. As I said...just a wee bit obsessed!

So, last year, when I saw Quirk Books offering review copies of Ian Doescher's William Shakespeare's Star Wars*, I signed up immediately. We've been battling over the copy ever since. I've seen the copy in both boys' backpacks; I know it's been on vacation with us. But it took knowing that the second book in the series was coming - and my threatening to keep it for myself unless they relinquished the first book - that finally landed it on my nightstand. I read it in a single sitting.

from quirkbooks.com

I do not employ the label 'genius' very often. In fact, I'm sort of hard to impress. But I will shout it from the kilometer-high skyscrapers of Coruscant: Ian Doescher is a genius!

If you are anything like me, and my family, you know the story...by heart. You have watched movies...too many times to count. You have picked up the book because you're curious: how does Star Wars collide with Shakespeare? Or really - how does the familiar story translate into iambic pentameter?

Let me tell you. Doescher's execution is masterful. Like Jedi-Master masterful.

I never would have thought to align Star Wars with Shakespeare; I am not a literary genius, after all. But when you look at the villainy, the hubris, and the valor, the two - Star Wars and William Shakespeare - are quite natural bedfellows.

Complete with almost two dozen amazing illustrations, William Shakespeare’s Star Wars is a must-have for any Star Wars fan. But it's the writing - Doescher's incredible text - that has landed this book as a family favorite.

*Note: we did receive a complimentary copy of this book for the purpose of reviewing it. All opinions are 100% accurate and our own.