Star Wars Rebels: Sabine My Rebel Sketchbook
She’s funny, creative and impulsive; an artist with spray paint and advanced weapons. She’s also a 16-year-old girl who happens to be flying around the universe, wreaking havoc on the Imperial army. Now you can read the private diary of Sabine Wren, the awesome new heroine of the Star Wars Rebels television series!
Wren is one of the most compelling and interesting female character [sic] in Star Wars since Princess Leia! She’s an explosives expert supreme, and a master of advanced weapons. She’s also a crazy artist, gifted at graffiti and sketching. She’s strong, bold, confident, cool – and only 16! Get to know Sabine through her own words and artistic expression in this replica journal filled with sketches, photos of her best work, stories, doodles and her observations of her fellow rebels. In Sabine’s own writing, relive events that occur during the first 10 episodes of Star Wars Rebels, plus discover details about Sabine’s life and the rebel team.
Author: Daniel Wallace
Illustrator: Annie Stoll
Editor: Benjamin Harper
Release date: February 3, 2015
Pages: 96
ISBN: 9780794432898
She’s funny, creative and impulsive; an artist with spray paint and advanced weapons. She’s also a 16-year-old girl who happens to be flying around the universe, wreaking havoc on the Imperial army. Now you can read the private diary of Sabine Wren, the awesome new heroine of the Star Wars Rebels television series!
Wren is one of the most compelling and interesting female character in Star Wars since Princess Leia! She’s an explosives expert supreme, and a master of advanced weapons. She’s also a crazy artist, gifted at graffiti and sketching. She’s strong, bold, confident, cool – and only 16! Get to know Sabine through her own words and artistic expression in this replica journal filled with sketches, photos of her best work, stories, doodles and her observations of her fellow rebels. In Sabine’s own writing, relive events that occur during the first 10 episodes of Star Wars Rebels, plus discover details about Sabine’s life and the rebel team.
Written by the always reliable Dan Wallace and illustrated by Annie Stoll, this colourful release is aimed at kids aged between 6 and 10 years old – just like Star Wars itself – but don’t be fooled into thinking this is just for kids, as Star Wars Rebels: Sabine My Rebel Sketchbook is a bright and breezy 96 pages of fun with plenty of info and insight for readers of any age.
Sure, it’s a journal which means a handful of ‘blank’ pages at the back, but those pages are littered with Sabine’s sketches and doodles, notes and thoughts. This is a great insight into how she thinks, what motivates her and how she views her fellow rebels. And while it’s not inside her head to the same degree that, say, Heir to the Jedi is inside Luke’s head, kids will get an even better grip on what makes her tick. And when I say kids, I don’t just mean girls. This will be just as much fun for Sabine’s male fans (including me).
Tucked inside pages are a swathe of fold out pages including ones of the Ghost, how to make a detonator that explodes into colour (which she refers to as ‘art tools’) and her Mando armour. There are wanted posters from the HoloNet, small passages as she watches Ezra and Zeb argue, even her idea on how to paint Ezra’s helmet collection. And who she thinks Fulcrum really is.
And, most impressively, as she ponders on who she thinks Fulcrum might be she vents her frustration about the lack of trust that Hera is showing her. It’s a neat dip into one of the increasingly key character arcs of the show, as Hera keeps her own council and the clearly capable Sabine grows frustrated at her lack of trust. As I said, it’s a kids book, but there’s a deeper undercurrent running through it.
I was more than pleasantly surprised by this book. While I’m still getting used to the very contemporary graffiti in the series and the book it totally works for this release, and is a big part of what makes Sabine Sabine. I’m enjoying the series as it develops, but the accompanying books (A New Dawn apart) have been pitched – understandably – at a younger audience, much like the show. Given that, it’s good to feel that older readers are being served to a certain degree while knowing that the kids are getting 100% out of the releases. For parent, aunts and uncles this is definitely a book that needs to be shared with the younglings of your family.
