“Reading Is For Everyone!” Poster by Scholastic

This is a poster put out by Scholastic in 1997 — around the time that the remastered “Special Editions” of the Star Wars films came out. For those of you not familiar with Scholastic, they are a publisher that sells their books directly to kids in schools. They’ve published a number of Star Wars books and magazines, like Star Wars Kids Magazine, or “The Search for Grubba the Hutt.”

I’m not sure how it’s changed in the intervening years, but when I was a kid there used to be “book orders” every once in a while where the kids would get to pick out the books they wanted from a Scholastic catalog. Of course your parents had to actually pay for them, but it was undeniably exciting to submit the order for things you picked out yourself, and then have it arrive at school for you to take home. Now that I think about it as an adult, I wonder how a for-profit company like Scholastic got such a privileged position in American schools, but at least they’re promoting reading.

I’m not sure if this poster was sold or given away. And it certainly wouldn’t look out of place hanging in a school library. In any case, I love how they have Jabba reading a book (“Star Wars: A Storybook” by J.J. Gardner). The other characters around him almost look like they are figments of his imagination as he reads the book. It’s 17″ x 22″.