It is almost never advisable to try to translate an inside joke to someone who wasn't present for it. The thing you found so funny about it makes no sense out of the specific context in which it originated. But today on my blog, I'm going to discard that wisdom and try anyway.A couple weeks ago I bemoaned the fact that I haven't properly been able to get my children ensnared in the Star Wars phenomenon. They saw and liked A New Hope, but have never clamored to see the rest of the movies. So we haven't forced it on them, much as I might have liked to.
The same has not been the case for Star Wars-related storybooks, specifically, the ones that function as something of an activity book, and even more specifically, the ones that function as a Star Wars version of Where's Waldo?, known in British Empire countries as Where's Wally?
The first one we had was popular enough, featuring a two-page spread from each of the six Star Wars movies before The Force Awakens, and then three spreads from The Force Awakens itself. You had to find about eight items per spread, from Sebulba the pod racer to specific ships in a space battle to little trinkets in a junk shop on Jakku. It provided enough enjoyment for my younger son to request reading it at least a half-dozen times.
The quantity hasn't been there for Where's the Wookiee and its sequel, Where's the Wookiee 2, the latter of which we just got this Christmas. But the quality of enjoyment has been much higher, a fact confirmed by the fact that his older brother has gotten involved in these ones. They may not have the same longevity as a repeatable experience -- once you've found Chewbacca in a thicket of frenzied Star Wars activity, you develop a memory of where he was the next time you try. But the initial task is far more satisfying.
In fact, sometimes finding Chewbacca is so difficult that I developed a narrative around the man who did the drawings, a narrative that involved him getting chewed out (no pun intended) by his boss for failing to include a Chewbacca in one particular spread.
But first, a little about these books. They involve familiar settings from as many Star Wars movies as existed at the time -- The Force Awakens and Rogue One have been added into the second, which has been on the shelves since November of 2017. But instead of a relative scarcity of characters as in the movies, they are overflowing with aliens and activity, almost Hieronymus Bosch style. The characters don't have to be from the planet in question -- I think I saw Jabba the Hutt on Endor -- and as there is in Where's Waldo?, there are a ton of what we call "fake baccas" to try to fool you into thinking you've found the real Chewy. It's a lot of fun.
One time, we had so much difficulty finding the correct Chewbacca that I came up with a character name Johnson, an illustrator working on these books, who is taken to task by his gruff boss for forgetting to include a wookiee in one particular spread. As in "You had one job, Johnson! To put Chewbacca on this page!" (The actual illustrator is someone named Ulises Farinas, but that just doesn't roll off the tongue.)
The kids love it. They can't get enough of it. I want something like this to come up organically, but anytime we read one of the Wookiee books, they say "Do Johnson!"
So I do.
Usually it doesn't take more than three minutes to find Chewbacca, and sometimes you spot him in the first 15 seconds, which is a little unsatisfying. But we really got our money's worth on one spread earlier this week, when we searched for a combined total of more than a half-hour, which included going on to the next spread and going back to it, and even my wife giving a cursory look for a minute. For anyone who has Where's the Wookiee 2 and is curious, it was the scene in the droid factory on Geonosis.
Johnson, it seemed, really did require a dressing down in this case. It was time for me to shine.
"Okay Johnson," I said in my most supercilious version of the boss' voice. "You say you drew a Chewbacca on this page. So I ask you: Where's the wookiee?"
Hysterics.
Then it was time, for the first time, for me to actually play Johnson.
"Yeah sure boss," I said. "He's right there." I dragged my finger across the page in a way that purposefully failed to identify any actual quadrant where the wookiee might be.
"I don't see him, Johnson! Show me exactly where!"
"He's in the top-bottom. He's on the left-right side of the page."
"Where, Johnson? WHERE?!?"
"He's near the [unintelligible word]."
It went on like this. The kids were loving it. I was loving it too.
The thing that made it all the more funny was that we still couldn't actually find Chewbacca.
What if they had actually forgotten to put Chewbacca in one of the spreads?
I was on the verge of googling it to see if it was some kind of internet scuttlebutt, that indeed the makers of the book had failed in their "one job," when finally I did locate him, really not that hidden at all. It must have been some kind of collective mind control that kept us from finding him before then. Or maybe Johnson quickly scribbled him in when we weren't looking.
I tell you this story not because I expect you to find it as funny as we did. I tell you it because I now have "a new hope" about my kids' interest in Star Wars. Maybe I just needed to find the right entry point, and maybe that entry point was a bumbling illustrator who couldn't do his one job.
Now that we've looked at these books as much as we have, maybe when they see the actual movies and see these locations on screen, it'll give them an ever-renewing sense of engagement as they go through and continue to see more.
I can't promise them Jabba the Hutt on Endor, but maybe the rest of it will be enough.
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