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Aang’ Left You Wanting More, These Books Expand the World Better Than You Think
Avatar: Aang: The Last Airbender may be giving fans another adventure with Aang and the original Team Avatar, but it is hardly the only way to keep exploring this world. The Avatar universe has grown far beyond the events of the animated series, with a collection of novels that dig into the lives of the Avatars who came before Aang and, more recently, the ordinary people caught in the middle of the Hundred-Year War.
The books are particularly useful for anyone who finished Avatar Aang wanting more. The movie sends Aang (Eric Nam), Katara (Jessica Matten), Sokka (Román Zaragoza), Toph (Dionne Quan), and Zuko (Steven Yeun) on another adventure years after the original series, but the novels go in the opposite direction, looking back at the history that shaped the Avatar the world would eventually come to know. They make the history of the Four Nations feel considerably bigger than what could fit into an animated series.
The Kyoshi Novels Are a Perfect Place To Start
If there’s one Avatar book series that makes the case for reading beyond the screen, it’s F.C. Yee’s Chronicles of the Avatar novels. The series begins with The Rise of Kyoshi, set 396 years before Avatar: The Last Airbender (ATLA), when Kyoshi is still an uncertain young woman rather than the intimidating Avatar remembered by history.
Kyoshi’s origin is anything but straightforward. After years of searching for the Avatar, the world believes it has found its next incarnation in Yun; Kyoshi, meanwhile, is an unassuming servant who doesn’t realize the significance of her own bending abilities until everything begins to unravel. Forced to flee with Fire Army officer Rangi, Kyoshi finds allies among the daofei, the outlaws operating in the shadows of the Earth Kingdom, while struggling to figure out what kind of Avatar she wants to become. ATLA occasionally tells viewers that past Avatars were complicated people, but the novel actually gets to live in that complication. Kyoshi is a young woman learning what justice means, dealing with grief, falling in love, and trying to survive a world that suddenly expects her to fix it.
The Shadow of Kyoshi continues that story as Kyoshi travels across the Four Nations attempting to maintain peace while confronting a new threat from the Spirit World. Together, the novels offer a version of the Avatar universe that is more politically complicated and considerably more interested in the consequences of violence. And now, fans can collect both stories in the Kyoshi Novels Ultimate Collector’s Edition, which packages the duology together in a single premium edition with a cloth slipcase, foil stamping, stained edges, die-cuts, and a satin ribbon bookmark.
Yangchen and Roku Show What the Avatar World Looked Like Before Aang
The other major advantage of the Chronicles of the Avatar books is that each Avatar feels genuinely different. The Dawn of Yangchen and The Legacy of Yangchen move away from Kyoshi’s more aggressive approach and into political intrigue, diplomacy, espionage, and the uncomfortable compromises required to keep the Four Nations from tearing itself apart.
Yangchen is the composed, almost saintly Avatar who Aang encounters through his past-life memories and spiritual connections in ATLA. The novels complicate that image by showing her before she has become the legendary figure Aang knows. In The Dawn of Yangchen, she navigates a corrupt Earth Kingdom city where political loyalty can be bought, while The Legacy of Yangchen heightens the stakes as the Four Nations face the threat of Unanimity, a weapon capable of catastrophic destruction.
Another familiar name in the prequel novels is Roku, whose history is already deeply woven into ATLA after being the center of the start of the Hundred-Year War we come to know in the 2005 series. Randy Ribay’s The Reckoning of Roku takes readers back to the beginning of Roku’s Avatar journey, when he is still struggling with self-doubt and training at the Southern Air Temple alongside a young Gyatso. His friendship with Crown Prince Sozin gives the story an immediate connection to the history fans already know, while the novel fills in the years that the animated series could only glimpse. The Awakening of Roku continues the story three years later, sending Roku north to investigate a mysterious illness threatening the Northern Water Tribe. For fans who want the strongest direct connections to ATLA, the Roku books are an especially natural next step.
The Yangchen books are also getting their own Ultimate Collector’s Edition later this year, bringing both novels together in the same kind of premium package as the Kyoshi collection. For collectors, there’s also a four-book hardcover box set containing both Kyoshi and Yangchen duologies, complete with a bonus character poster.
‘City of Echoes’ Proves You Don’t Need To Be an Avatar
Perhaps the most interesting expansion of the universe comes from City of Echoes, Judy I. Lin’s first Avatar Legends novel. Instead of following an Avatar, the story centers on Jin, the young woman fans briefly meet in Ba Sing Se during Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Jin is a refugee living in the Lower Ring, caring for her grandfather while trying to survive in a city that insists there is no war beyond its walls. When her best friend’s family falls into financial trouble, Jin gets pulled into a dangerous world involving the city’s black market, the Silver Fangs, and a conspiracy unfolding as the Fire Nation closes in on Ba Sing Se.
The novel revisits several familiar events from Jin’s perspective, including moments from the Book Two episode “The Tales of Ba Sing Se,” Jet’s attack on the Pao Family Tea House, the aftermath of Jet’s death, and the eventual liberation of Ba Sing Se. It’s the sort of story ATLA could never have fully told because of its focus on Aang’s journey.
Avatar Aang gives fans more of the characters they already love, and the novels offer the history behind those characters, the people living in the corners of the world they never got to visit, and a much clearer sense of how massive the Avatar universe actually is. For fans who aren’t ready to leave that world behind, that’s a pretty good reason to keep reading.
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