Children's Book Review: The Strange Case of the Origami Yoda (Ages 8-12)
Tom Angleberger
Dwight is the weirdest kid at in McQuarrie Middle School, but he doesn’t seem to care. Despite his low spot on the middle school food chain he shakes things up when he folds an origami Yoda finger puppet who starts giving out advice. The kids at school are confounded when the paper Yoda says some really insightful stuff while he is perched on Dwight’s finger. The real Dwight would have never thought of such clever solutions to his classmates’ problems. How could a finger puppet say such astute things? Is Dwight actually wise beyond his years or has the puppet somehow gained magical properties? In this title, a group of students work to put together case files to help them get to the truth of the matter as they investigate the mystery of Dwight and his paper Jedi.
This is a great story for fans of Diary of a Wimpy Kid. The book is split up between several different characters’ case files, so the book is chopped into short segments with a different voice narrating each event. There is also a generous supply of doodles that are sure to lure in kids who cling to journal and diary books. Though this book is set in a middle school, the reading level is geared more toward the elementary school crowd, which makes sense as fourth and fifth graders tend to be interested in reading about what life is like for older kids. There are instructions for how to fold your own paper Yoda in the back of the book, which is a lot of fun and a good introduction to origami. This is a series, so if you or your kids love the first one, there are already three more titles out there. This is a great summer read for avid and reluctant readers alike.
Check it out!
Mollie McFarland
Springville Road Library
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