Navigating the extensive Star Wars Expanded Universe can prove a tricky task. In almost forty years of existence, it has never ceased to grow. Some titles are still famous and others remain obscure. One of them is the youth oriented book series The Young Jedi Knights, written by Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta. The fourteen volumes were released between 1995 and 1998.
The books focus on a young generation of teenage Jedi, learning at the Academy Luke Skywalker runs on Yavin IV. This includes the first born twin children of Leia Organa and Han Solo: Jacen and Jaina Solo. The main group also involves Chewbacca’s nephew, Lowbacca, Tenel Ka Djo, Hapan princess of Dathomiri ascendancy, and finally Zekk, a childhood friend to the Solo twins.
These books do a great job at developing the new generations, who get prominently featured in following adult Star Wars novels, as from The New Jedi Order series. In a way, I find that it is a linking ground, such as the recent Star Wars Rebels television show is to both prequel and original trilogy eras. Indeed, several well known characters appear in The Young Jedi Knights, including from the older generation.
Source: Wookieepedia.
The books are quite short and aren’t necessarily alike to how they would be written twenty years later. Maybe now they would be a bit grimmer and complex; but they nevertheless tackled certain serious topics, including the common pattern of acquired disability with the character of Tenel Ka losing an arm in the fourth book. It also presented a diverse cast, with the main group including three male characters, including an alien, and two female ones.
For those interested in these characters in the following books, this series meant for younger audiences, give a lot of background, not just about the characters themselves, but about their connections.
Regardless of the actual content and family evolutions the upcoming sequel movie trilogy, the previous stories told in the Star Wars expanded universe, including The Young Jedi Knights, participate to how fans pictured what happened to the original trilogy characters as they carried on with their lives following the downfall of the Empire and the reconstruction of the Republic.
These books aren’t easy to find at this point, but if you like Star Wars and have a friend who happens to own these, you may want to give this a try.
Sourcerer 
Nice, I love Star Wars, but I’ve never read these….drat more stuff on my to read list… š
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If you can find them, I hope you enjoy them! They gave some interesting information about the Solo kids and other characters (some eventually showing up in The New Jedi Order and later books, like Tenel Ka). They’re youth oriented books but it isn’t the only time that these give new insight into beloved characters (I remember loving the ones for even younger kids about Obi Wan’s training as a padawan with Qui-Gon!)
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Reblogged this on Natacha Guyot and commented:
My second A to Z post for Sourcerer. Today I write about an old Star Wars book series: The Young Jedi Knights (Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta).
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Many people like this video. š
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I loved this books when I discovered them in 1997. Alas, I never got a chance to read many of them as I moved and the library here in FL didn’t have them. I moved back to NJ, and then back again, but since they only had a few titles I was never able to get to them all. My high school did have a couple of them, which helped, but I will have to see if I can Inter Library Loan them from another library in the state.
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I followed them as they came out in France over the span of a few years. Getting one or two new ones was always a treat! I remember exchanging postcards with my best friend during our summer holidays (they often had a few coming out at this time) since it was before emails, so we could talk about them. I am sorry you couldn’t read them all but cross fingers you can find them š
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First, I need to find the list I had of which one’s I’d read! I know I started with Shards of Alderaan and read Lightsabers in high school, as well as the one before or after, maybe both, and the ending trilogy. But I’m not positive!
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had some of them once. I had to give them away when i moved. sigh.
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Sorry to hear you had to give them away!
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I’m a fan of the first three, which kids these days call 4,5,& 6.
I have trouble thinking of them any other way.
Heather
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Well, the original trilogy was labelled episodes 4, 5, 6 years before the prequels came out. I love the prequels as well, but would always show the original trilogy first if introducing someone to Star Wars.
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My brother had these books and I read them all. I wonder if he still has them. Maybe next time I see him, I’ll remember to ask.
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It’s great to find other people who read them! Since these books aren’t the most famous of the Star Wars EU or so recent, I wondered when writing this post how much it might speak to people. š
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