Every generation has its Star Wars favorite characters.
Mine is Han Solo. (It was an 8-year-old's crush!)
My teen daughter's is Ahsoka.
We're avid Clone Wars fans, watched all the animated Star Wars series, and my daughter (18) grew up with Ahsoka as a role model. (You may have noticed my Ian Doescher William Shakespeare's Star Wars series teaching units posted here... ;-) So my daughter put this on hold at our library and read it, first. I had to wait for it.
It answers the question of what happened to Ahsoka after Order 66, after she leaves her light sabers behind, after Palpatine takes over the Republic, everything crumbles and everyone she loves is crushed or killed.
She's on her own, truly, forging her own path. She turned her back on the Jedi Order long before this, but now grief is a daily, soul-crushing thing, and she keeps her head down on one planet, not using her Force powers, trying to blend in.
But the Imperial touch is soon felt even there. She steals a ship and leaves as soon as Imperial forces occupy her refuge, where she's been repairing ships for a family with a daughter she's just learned is Force-sensitive. There's nothing she can do to help the little girl, she figures, and gets away before the Imperial creature sent to hunt her down can find her.
She heads to a new planet, a farming planet, where she tries to start over again, keeping her head down, repairing farming droids this time. But now there's a glimmer of resistance. Of rebellion. When an Imperial accountant arrives, primed to exploit the planet for all it's worth, literally (soil and people), she helps them organize and sets up a place for them to flee. But when the going gets rough, she leaves, again, figuring her presence will only bring worse forces down on the planet.
And she isn't wrong. But she isn't totally right, either. She goes back to the first planet, hoping to hide there, and rediscovers her strength. (I won't say how; read the book and find out!)
And now she knows there's something on the second planet that's calling her, beckoning her, something she's ached for, for a long time. A second chance. And she can't pass up the opportunity to fight for it.
Enjoy this tale of Ahsoka's and get a glimpse of how she's recruited by Organa Bail into the budding Resistance.
Ahsoka, by E. K. Johnston
