The Strange Case of Origami Yoda: Read it you must.

There are directions for folding Origami Yoda at the end of the book. Took me a few tries, but behold!

Yes, I made that Yoda finger puppet myself.  And, yes, you can, too.  Really!

While I understand that you, presumably a grown-up, may have no desire to do so, I can assure you that anyone between the ages of 8-12 is in on making Origami Yoda.  So in.  They are also so in to reading Tom Angleberger’s book, The Strange Case of Origami Yoda, a comic romp through the absurd and profound that is middle school.  You know how sometimes the fact that a blockbuster movie is a blockbuster somehow cheapens it?  Well, this book is a bestseller.  Let’s say my expectations for its literary value were moderate. Let’s also say I knew my summer book club boys wouldn’t care a lick (or should I say, an i-yoda?) about literary value.  Just the cover and the title by themselves are a no-brainer for a teacher like me, trying to hook a bunch of pre-adolescents on the brink of middle school themselves.  If the book was a little scant on substance, so be it.

How can anyone resist this?

And then, I read it.  I was anticipating it would be hilarious, and it is.  I knew the format would be engaging, like the Wimpy Kid and Big Nate series, and indeed that is true, also. There are funny, kid-like doodles on all the pages, and each page looks like a crumpled paper that has done time in a backpack. What was less predictable was the  great characterization.  And even less predictable, it has depth.  It has depth!  The fact is that at its heart, The Strange Case of Origami Yoda raises radical questions for kids.  Is that nerdy loner you all think is a total loser really smarter than anyone in school?  No, smarter is the wrong word.  Smart in and of itself doesn’t hold much cache in middle school. Is that kid wiser?  Is it possible that that kid is not oblivious to middle school norms, but rather quite aware and simply doesn’t care?  In other words, is it possible that middle school norms are bull poop?

Whoa.

The narrator, named Tommy, outlines the mystery gripping his circle of friends at vdms:  Is Dwight’s origami finger puppet of Yoda magically spouting words of wisdom, or is it just Dwight?  Dwight, resident goober of the sixth grade, seems incapable of the kind of psychic, Zen-like advice given by Origami Yoda.  This is a guy who generally appears to self-sabotage any chance of winning respect among his peers.  He uses his straw to eat hamburgers.  He wears a vomit green sweater vest with an orange reindeer on it.  He spends a lot of time standing in a hole he dug in his backyard. Yet, when Dwight’s finger puppet of Yoda gives advice, in a rather pathetic imitation of  Yoda’s voice, it’s spot on, causing Tommy and his friends to ponder their presuppositions about Dwight.  Tommy has particular urgency in getting to the bottom of it all, as he needs some advice about his love interest Sara, and nothing less than his dignity is riding on whether or not Origami Yoda is for real.  Hence, Tommy tells us, he has assembled a “case file” of first-hand accounts, gathered from classmates who have benefitted from Origami Yoda’s advice, so as to weigh out the evidence.

What follows is a series of scenarios in which Angleberger expertly captures all that is embarrassing, funny, silly, honest, and guarded about that unique time in life known as sixth grade.  In Origami Yoda and the Embarrassing Stain, Kellen spills water on his pants so it looks like he’s peed his pants seconds before he has to enter his homeroom.  Yoda’s advice:  All of pants you must wet. Tommy splashes water over the rest of his pants, thus avoiding total humiliation (enduring the discomfort is no sweat by comparison).  Quavando, plagued by his school-wide nickname “Cheeto Hog” because of an unfortunate choice he made in a vending machine incident, is told by Origami Yoda, Cheetos for everyone you must buy.  Indeed, it works.  Origami Yoda also correctly predicts who will get kicked off American Idol even though Dwight doesn’t watch TV.

My readers flip-flopped their opinions with each “case,” weighing the evidence and formulating their own theories.  There’s a part in most of us, I suspect, that wants Origami Yoda to be magic.  But then, there’s another part that wants Dwight to be a genius, too.  In the end, Harvey, the cynical tough guy throughout, is hung out to dry.  Dwight wins the girl.  So does Tommy!  And he’s learned to accept Dwight for who he is, in all his eccentric glory.  True, the mystery about Origami Yoda remains unresolved.  My book clubbers are so glad!  Otherwise, there wouldn’t be need for the sequel, which comes out this fall:  Darth Paper Strikes Back.

Uh-oh. He looks a little more complicated.

I wonder if I’ll be able to make the Origami Darth Paper.

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