Tom Angleberger’s “The Strange Case of Origami Yoda” was assigned as district-wide reading for my daughter’s school. The challenge is that they’re having 1st through 8th graders read it, and it seems like it would appeal to 5th grade and younger.

In my experience, kids like to read about kids a little older than themselves, so to have 8th graders reading about 6th graders is questionable enough. The subject matter is even more questionable. I’m surprised that the characters are middle schoolers. On the one hand, they’re obsessed with who likes whom (normal middle school drama), but on the other hand, they’re getting advice about it from a finger puppet that looks like Yoda.

This feels like a much younger version of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. I think it will appeal to 10yo and under, preferably those who are Star Wars fans, so giving it 3 stars for that.