There’s a fun new Star Wars children’s book that’s been released that will explore an aspect of Darth Vader that has never been explored before… the things that Darth Vader is afraid of. The picture book is called Are You Scared, Darth Vader? and it was written and illustrated by Adam Rex. As you might imagine, the book teaches kids about fear in a fun, relatable way but with a Star Wars spin. 

During an interview with io9, the author talked about his book saying:

“I ended up pitching a few broad ideas as well as an early draft of Are You Scared, Darth Vader? As an idea, it has one of those unsatisfying origin stories where I think the title came to me while waiting for a stoplight and I sat down to figure out what kind of book might have a name like that.

“The biggest theme that emerged as I worked on the book is that Darth Vader is an intimidating villain, but he’s your intimidating villain. He lives in your book, your DVD player, your imagination. He’s your action figure to toy with.”

The book is not canon and not tied to any of the films. It’s just a liitle book for kids to enjoy. Michael Siglain, the executive director of publishing at Lucasfilm, explained:

“With direct film tie-ins, publishing strives to make sure those titles enhance, support, or retell the films in exciting and dramatic ways. With books not directly tied to the films, but tied to the larger saga, we have opportunities for new and different approaches to the stories we can tell. Examples of this include our current Jedi Academy books, our Shakespeare Star Wars books, and, obviously, the spooky Are You Scared, Darth Vader? The one common denominator in all our titles is that they’re authentically Star Wars.”

Check out some preview pages from the book below.