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The Strange Case of Origami Yoda
I’ve been revisiting the series and it holds up really well. Some things are a little rough but I think they get fine tuned into the great series I remember. I really love Dwight and how real he feels in certain scenes (Origami Yoda lets me down, and that ISS slip chapter really hit hard). Other things, the drawings are still pretty charming, the character feel like real middle schoolers, I relate a lot to Mike’s softball frustrations, and parts of this book are just flat out funny.
Now for the second arc of the franchise. I’m excited.
How do we (origami yoda) not have a fandom yet?
A book franchise with a clever series of art doodles sprinkled throughout, pretty realistic middle schoolers, a hilariously strange premise, great neurodiversity representation, like seriously where’s our corner of the internet?
The Surprise Attack of Jabba the Puppet
This was a weird one I’m not gonna lie. This a strange book in the series since it’s after the first three which generally make up Dwight’s arc and the first one of the series. Now the focus is a little scattershot but it pays off in the last two, but this one is strange. Not to say I didn’t still like it, but it’s definitely the weakest due to pacing and generally uninteresting cases. On to the positives though, FunTime is so genuinely painful it hurts, I mean the set up of it is a little strange, but this really does feel like crap school boards would do, Florida’s done weirder stuff to their education. Plus the concept of Professor Funtime and Gizmo/Webster is so funny. This book also has more Murky which is always good. I love that the dude, without hesitating picked Padme, that is an epic move. Plus, making annoying straight people feel uncomfortable is so funny and Murky does it to perfection in one chapter. I also love James Suervo Jr so much for no reason. He’s just this weird 8th grader who hangs out with 7th graders because the other 8th graders don’t like him, that’s just too real, plus Hando Calrissian will never not be funny. I loved Dwight in this book too. He’s just vining now that he’s completed his character arc (except for the ending, we’ll get to the ending) him just being captain Dwight, the gym coach respecting him, the sacred bond he has with lunch man Jeff! I mean come on you can’t write this stuff. However the scene where he immediately gives up when threatened with a call to his mom, that broke me man. It’s just so hard seeing him desperately not want to get his mom worked up again and not wanting to feel those intense emotions again. On my last final note in this horribly disorganized review, Mike’s mom freaking sucks.
It’s That Time Again.
Time to watch FunTime’s demise. Very excited.
Princess Labelmaker to the Rescue!
What a book, Jabba the Puppet was an ok book, but this one was amazing and completely justified the FunTime arc of the series. So much great stuff the cases, the doodles, the resolution. I don’t know where to begin. First off I’m gonna discuss Murky, we love Murky and this book decided to give his character new dimension. He gets a chapter where he gives solid advice to Jen via Pad-me and a chapter all about him getting picked on by bigots. That specific chapter was so real and refreshing to see the topic brought up in an elementary aged book. I love the message of the chapter saying that it doesn’t matter what Murky’s orientation is, he’s just a cool person who deserves to be in the yearbook like everyone else credit to Sara for knowing what’s what (also Mike concerned me in that chapter). I liked Quavondo’s chapter since it gave him a resolution with Mr. GFC (and it also brought up casual racism, seriously Tom really got to give kids more challenging topics in this book) plus the three nameless dudes line, we will love you Than, always. I loved the chapter where the Patterns kids showed off their art skills, Lance’s Twitter escapades, Cassie’s drama club conclusion. Of course I gotta bring up the two part crab soccer arc. Seeing Harvey be so determined on something positive like winning a crab soccer game against “The Tot” was amazing, I legitimately loved reading this arc for the good feelings. Finally it’s time for the serious talks: Rabbski was so interesting in this book as she essentially realized that being a principal was completely wrong for her. Her talk with Sara was so interesting with how she realized that she hated what she was doing to Dwight forcing the kids to give up what they love for bogus test (side note the commentary on test culture and how companies make a lot of money exploiting schools is so telling). It was so great seeing her come to terms with this and makes her snaps at the school board meeting all the better. Also the school board meeting such a great moment, good full circle from Darth Paper, and Kellen got an epic moment there. In conclusion Princess Labelmaker was an excellent book that could have served for a decent series finale, but if I remember correctly we got spoiled on Emperor Pickletein. I’m so happy Tom was able to write this book and I love everything.
Emperor Pickletein Rides the Bus
Oh boy, the grand finale of a grand series. To be honest Princess Labelmaker is more of a climax to the series than this book is, but that’s ok. I like to think of this book as a great epilogue, just helping our favorite characters get to their happy endings and giving us some fun stories along the way. This book is interesting since it’s a story being told in semi-real time. At least the case file follows one singular day and some of its entries happen in real time. This is just a cool idea and helps keep things fresh. Anyway though this book also focuses on our main 7th graders even though Remi and Murky get little chapters of their own (some more fulfilling than others *sob). Dwight and Kellen are fun in this book since they basically just vibe the whole time, absolutely no drama whatsoever (I mean Kellen did the paper airplane thing and got mad at Lance, but Dwight was perfect). Some fun stories include Sara’s first chapter with her field trip haikus (I’m not really surprised that Sara writes haikus), the tragedy of Mrs. Porterfield and the TURTLE, Sara again, getting Rhondella to stop texting her Bib Fortuna boyfriend, and made you look because it’s just so accurate to middle school. I liked the use of Fruit-i-gami Yoda since it kinda helped show that our main cast doesn’t really need Origami Yoda anymore and neither does Dwight, he was there for a few final bits of advice to finish the character arcs but he wasn’t as common. This serves to my theory that as the story of the books go on the kids need Origami Yoda less and less (when the series starts every chapter is dedicated to a kid asking for advice but now Origami Yoda is hardly even present) and Dwight, who I think used him as a way to relate to his classmates that couldn’t understand him, is now ready to let go of him since he has a support system now and people who have grown to appreciate and understand him. It’s honestly a great character arc that I definitely couldn’t pick up on as a kid. And with that we have Harvey who carries around Pickletein, an annoying jag who just serves piss everyone off. I remember starting this book thinking why is Harvey doing this, he’s on our side now. But then I actually thought to answer my question, why is Harvey doing this, and I realized (like Tommy does later) that Harvey has similar mental processes to Dwight but handles them differently. He has a lot of passion and emotion, but it goes unnoticed since like Dwight, people don’t really understand Harvey. I think that Harvey sees Dwight adjusting to life, but Harvey still hasn’t and can’t understand why, if Dwight can do it why can’t he. So he makes Pickletein so he can have some way of relating to the world on this field trip. But when he keeps pissing people off on this field trip they all get rightfully mad at him and it’s all building in him, finally when Tommy gets kissed by Sara he just can’t take it anymore and punches him, and he immediately regrets it because he’s not a bad person, just emotional and confused, and when Tommy forgives him that’s the understanding he needs to finally find peace in himself and gain the same support system that Dwight has. Ok I realize I may be reading to much into that and I don’t have any basis for this knowledge, but it’s how I see it and I think it’s a great character arc for the both of them. Back to the fluffier stuff, the astronaut ice cream thing was hilarious throughout its time, and the fact that it paid off so well kills me every time. Amy and Lanlan have the funniest and realest time ever in this book, honestly Amy is so real in this book. The great respect given to the Bell X-1. Freaking Mr. Good Clean Fun. The ending showing how everyone has grown into better people thanks to Dwight and Origami Yoda (and that Dwight really hasn’t changed, rather the people around him changed for the better), and that Origami Yoda is in fact real I believe it. In conclusion, thank you Tom Angleberger for creating an amazing series and ending it properly.
Origami Yoda is a miracle. Like seriously it sounds so unbelievably dumb in concept, and many would initially write it off as a kids book, or pandering to Star Wars fans, but like, it’s actually a really amazing critique of the schools system, a beautiful story of a neurodivergent-codes kid making friends without having to change who he is, and just an all around fun time with realistically written middle schoolers. Like obviously I love the series since I wrote long reviews of each book, but like it’s actually perfects. Please read it if you get the chance it’s a classic.