What the Star Wars books meant to me

It took me a long time to learn how to read. The first books I got into were Peanuts. I really liked Patty because she had brown hair and freckles like me and struggled in school like me. I also liked how she was into sports and was a tom boy and was a good friend and wore shorts and thongs and wasn't a stereotype of what a little girl should be. I wasn't a huge tom boy. I was a mix. I loved fairies and mermaids but also Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles. When I was about 13 I read my first Star Wars book. I liked the films and my mother and sister were reading the books and already had a little collection. I'll never forget when I read the first opening paragraph of the first book in the Thrawn trilogy. This was very different to Peanuts! as the author described a star destoryer sliding through the inky blackness of space I could see it in my mind like a movie inside my skull. It was amazing. My own little world. My escape. I have no idea how many of these books I have now but I went through a phase where I wanted to collect them all and bought a lot online. I will never throw these books out because they were some of the first I ever read and I look at some and can remember where I was and how old I was when I read them. I'm even keeping the ones I didn't like and didn't even read because I've had them so long and some of them were my mother's which I pinched. These books are my child hood. I grew up with them. It saddens me that the new movies are ditching them but it makes sense really because the other alternative would have been to re-cast the main three actors but they also wanted to do their own thing which is fine but that doesn't stop me from being sad over how much is being lost. No Jaina, no Mara, no Jacen to name just a few characters now gone. They're not publishing the books anymore either. They want to start a fresh. Again I understand why. In the books the main three were getting pretty old. They couldn't go on forever. At the same time though plot lines have been left unfinished and good characters that could've taken the story forward are being pushed aside. I'll be truthful though I haven't been into these books in the past few years as I used to be. The last series was too political, too boring. I'm going to read the last few because of nostaglia they are the last ones I feel like I have to at least try to read them. I guess its best to think of the books I love as a seperate reality of star wars I guess. Those stories, those characters, they're still there and still important and I'll always have the memories. These books got me into reading and helped me become a writer and I think helped me in school as well. The more I read the more my English improved I think.