Darth Vader and Son

A few months ago, I heard about the new children's book Darth Vader and Son from a friend on Facebook. The book explores the hypothetical scenario of Darth Vader raising a four-year-old Luke Skywalker. I picked up a copy at Powell's Books in Portland as a trip souvenir for Eddie, who coincidentally just turned four himself.

Instead of a formal narrative, the book consists of a series of single panel comics. Each page presents Darth Vader confronting a parenting scenario with predictably humorous results. In an interview with the author/cartoonist Jeffrey Browne, he talks a little about his personal connection to Star Wars and parenting. One of my favorite excerpts:

I think what I tried to get at was that your kids do these things that are so unbelievably frustrating, and you just have to bite your tongue or you just have to put up with it. So I just tried to put Darth Vader through that. I think the difference there is that for him it's got to be even more aggravating because he's this powerful Sith Lord ruling the Empire and yet he has this four-year-old and he's just got to kind of take it.

Here's a little taste of what you'll find in the book:

Even poor Darth can't win an argument with a four-year-old.

On a semi-related note, Star Wars has enough of a presence in our home that Violet has subconsciously learned the theme song, and will start singing it whenever she sees anything Star Wars-related. Herein lies the video evidence.