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New to First Book?
Join us to connect with thousands of fellow educators and access exciting educational events and resources for you and your students.
Pizza Hut's BOOK IT! program will provide 10,000 books to classrooms for the 2019-2020 school year via First Book to encourage students to find joy in reading. We spoke with this year's BOOK IT! author partner and a First Book favorite author,Tom Angleberger, about theOrigami Yodaseries and what is means to be a Pizza Hut author partner & literacy ambassador.
Tom: Origami Yoda the book was inspired by Origami Yoda the finger puppet. It all came about very naturally, since I'm a long, long time fan of both Star Wars and origami. I saw a super complicated origami Yoda online. Way beyond my skill level. So I made my own simple version and … the Force was with me … because it just happened to fit on my finger like a finger puppet.
Tom: The Origami Yoda series is my attempt to re-write my own past. Middle School was a disaster for me. What if I had had Yoda's wisdom to stop me from making a fool of myself every day for 3 years?
Tom: Grab a piece of scrap paper and fold it a few times! Does it look like something? If not, recycle it. If yes... then tweak the folds, draw on it, bring it to life!
Tom: I think my job is to be super excited about books. I was going to do that anyway!!!
Pizza Hut's BOOK IT! team is helping me share that excitement with kids all over the country!
https://vimeo.com/333595499
Tom: My first wave of readers have grown up! I'd love for a new generation of kids to start reading the books and folding Yodas!
Tom: Stories!!! The ability to tell stories, read stories and share stories is one of the best parts of being human.
Take that away from a kid and you are literally stealing something from them. Likewise, giving a kid a book is so much more than handing over an object. The right book finding the right kid is priceless.
