Star Wars: Awaken the Force & Rogues

Original Date: Saturday, January 9th, 2016

Time: 3:00 - 4:00 PM (1 hour program)

When I was asked by the administration at my former library if I would consider acting as an "official/unofficial" (my words) assistant to the then-current teen librarian, I jumped at the chance. My managers were aware of my previous schooling in Middle Grades Language Arts, and I suppose they thought I might have something of value to contribute to the teen programming and services at our branch.

Like I do whenever I find a new creative endeavor, I dug into it with obsessive ardor, searching online for advice and columns on teen services and program ideas. Looking back on that period of time, it's amusing to see how little I knew about everything, and it's likely a good idea that most of my "ideas" didn't get the chance or the time to make it off the ground. (I'm also highly aware of the fact that though I've learned a lot in the last two years that there's still *plenty* of stuff to which I remain ignorant.)

All this lengthy preamble is to say that for those first six months things were very slow-going, and it really wasn't until that library's new and current teen librarian, Marcus, arrived on the scene at the tail-end of 2015 that I would start getting my first real taste of what it was like to plan and execute a library program. This whole crazy adventure began with our virgin voyage, Star Wars: Awaken the Force, in January 2016.

Marcus, being a big fan of the series, had wanted to capitalize on the fanatical anticipation that the first installment of the newest trilogy had awoken (ha-ha) in fandom earlier that year. It was originally meant to be a strictly YA affair from what I remember for the grades 6-12 crowd, but for reasons I don't believe I was made privy to the event ended up being open to all ages. As such, the response we got from the public was pretty massive; considering that the major activities we had on hand were a "Make Your Own Lightsaber" craft with colored duct tape and gift wrap tubes, an election for the participants to either choose to be a Jedi or a member of the Sith by how many cookies they ate from the opposing camps (sugar for Jedi, Oreos for Sith; you tell *me* who won that bout), and a trivia contest that involved one of our teen volunteers shouting out questions over the din of excited toddlers, people turned out for this program in droves. Between little ones, parents, and a fair number of freshman-aged teens, there was easily at least 50 people crammed into our sizable Youth Activity Room.

The other main highlight was the staging of "choreographed" lightsaber battles for the enjoyment of the masses. Marcus and I led off the proceedings with our hastily-blocked match that had his Jedi defeating my black-hoodied Sith. I like to think that the crushed and limp state of our lightsabers by that time in the program lent an air of gravitas to the battle that George Lucas could only dream of. The other battles were certainly more... enthusiastic than ours, including a match between two teenage boys that managed to move out of the established "ring" and undoubtedly gave the people sitting up close an unexpected thrill.

We had A New Hope playing on the projection screen for the duration of the program; Marcus started the film at just the right time so that by 4:00 when we handed out our prizes (including a movie gift card for The Force Awakens) the film had reached the point where Luke, Han, and Chewie receive their medals of valor. Our winners were standing at the front of the room right as the crowd in the movie was cheering. I still can't get over that!

Eagle-eyed readers will quickly notice that the above photo contains a scene that is certainly *not* from A New Hope on the projection screen and that the attendance is slightly more underwhelming than my tall tales of two-score attendees would have it. That's because both of the pictures included in this post are actually from the library's *second* Star Wars event, Star Wars Rogues. (This was in the days before my obsessive photo-taking and record-keeping had properly matured.)

Original Date: Saturday, December 17th, 2016

Time: 2:00 - 4:30 PM (2.5 hour program)

We managed to head off the premiere of the new film at the pass this time out. As a callback of sorts to the earlier program, this time we had The Force Awakens playing as our in-program film. We revived the lightsaber craft and cookie-voting system from the previous event, this time featuring the introduction of those lovable anti-heroes, the Chocolate Chips! (I mean the Rogues!) Our trivia contest was tuned-down to a simple testing of the attendees' knowledge to name as many characters from each camp as they could. I was surprised that even as a relative newb to the Star Wars verse I had to actually school some of the teens on the villains who belonged to the Dark Side. (How the heck can you forget about a character named Count Dooku?)

I can't claim to know why attendance was markedly lower at this event in comparison to Awaken the Force, but I suspect the fact that we did limit Rogues to grades 6-12 this time out had an influence on it. Still, the amount of folks we had were all generally interested and/or passionate about Star Wars that the afternoon passed pretty pleasurably.

And yes, I wore the same black hoodie to announce my allegiance to the Sith. The Dark Side keeps things pretty simple, fashion-wise.