"Choose Your Own Adventure" is back!

[Tannerman]

Raise your hand if you ever read a Choose Your Own Adventure book as a kid. I read more than my share, that's for sure!

Remember reading these?

For those of you in the dark on the series, this was a collection of books published from 1979-1998, all written uniquely in the second-person. The big differentiator was the fact that they offered you a choice at certain points in the book. If you made Choice A, turn to page XYZ. Choice B? Then go to page ABC. If you think about it, these books were way ahead of their time when it came to building decision-making skills, influencing gameplay structure, and even hinting at the linked, multi-page world we have now with the Internet. There were over 180 books in the series, plus various branded spin-offs, and they were huge best sellers.

That red logo meant good stuff!

My mom is a grade school librarian -- and has been since I've been in 1st grade. My sister and I both had the weirdness pleasure of having her be our librarian through our years at a small Christian grade school. Thus, we have always been surrounded by books growing up. One of the advantages of being the son of a librarian is the chance to read new books before they hit the shelves, which is what I did when all the new Choose Your Own Adventure titles came in. The school would often get them via book grants from the state of Illinois, private donors, or through straight purchases from the library budget.

As such, often the assumed content of the books didn't quite match up with the beliefs of the school. For example, to avoid the wrath of disgruntled and close-minded parents from picketing and making a fuss, typically books that had topics/characters such as demons, witches, magic, evil, etc., were never placed on the shelves.

Where do you think they ended up?

Some of my personal collection

I'm proud to say that I have quite an extensive collection of "evil topic" Choose Your Own Adventure books! I mean, with titles like War With The Evil Power Master, The Dragon's Den, and The Mystery of Chimney Rock, I'm sure glad that other kids weren't exposed to such badness. (Funny how my parents didn't seem to have an issue with me reading these... hmmm...)

But in all seriousness, I did buy quite a few of these books on my own, along with reading what the library had to offer. What was great about the series is that they never stuck to one topic. One book had you traveling through space, while another might put you in a race around the world. The style of writing, along with the way that the reader was empowered, really encouraged my reading of them... and I read a bunch! Which is why I would always get mad when teachers would tell me that Choose Your Own Adventure books weren't eligible to be used for book reports. They never considered them "real" books, I guess. Phooey!

Believe it or not, these are new!

There were also interesting spinoffs of the core CYOA series. One of my favorites was the Time Machine series, that had you visiting different historical events. I learned things for the first time reading those things, such as info about the Spanish Inquisition or various heroes of the Old West. There were also a couple of Choose Your Own Super Adventure books which were longer, contained more choices, and typically contained only 1 "good" ending you had to find. Finally, I really was challenged by the Escape from... series, written by the creator of the CYOA books. There were two collections, each with 4 books that were all tied together with a single story arc: Escape from Tenopia and Escape from the Kingdom of Frome. Both fantasy-driven. I finished the Frome series and remember it being hard. Unfortunately, I only own Book 3 of the Tenopia series and never read it. I figured someday I would pickup Books 1, 2, and 4, but never did. Still haven't. Weird.

The company that brought CYOA back

Well, let's jump up to today. In case you didn't know, the Choose Your Own Adventure series officially went out of print in 2003. And that was it. Or so was thought. Because one of the original writers for the series, R.A. Montgomery, bought the rights to 141 of the original books and is rereleasing a new generation of CYOA books via his company, ChooseCo. What they are doing is looking at the original books and updating portions to make them relevant -- include references to GPS, Internet, mobile phones, as well as taking into account political changes in countries. Additionally, new artwork and illustrations are being used. But at their core, it's the same old Choose Your Own Adventure.

Old Cover: Space and Beyond

I know this because I bought the first two "new" books when they were released in 2006. The revived series is taking on a new number system, so now book #1 is The Abominable Snowman vs. the traditional #1, The Cave of Time. Mostly this is due to the first batch of books all being ones that R.A. Montgomery wrote originally. As they gain other rights and look ahead, I'm sure more diversity in authors will come on board. Additionally, I would guess that they are primarily looking at what sold well originally, avoiding any stinkers in the mix.

New Cover: Space and Beyond

There are also some modern updates to the series as well. For example, you can see "Secret Online Endings" if you visit the official website for the series, CYOA.com. They are also getting involved in some DVD storytelling, rerelases of younger reader books, a collectible card series, and downloadable stories for your iPod. So far, I've been impressed with what they've done to bring back the brand. The stories and adventure are still relevant today. (And there's word that they'll be releasing hardcover versions specifically for library use, as you really need durability there!)

Overall, it's great to have this series back, even if I'm a little older than their target demographic!

[FernLaplante]

I used to read these and "cheat" by allowing myself "take-backs" if I didn't like the result of what I had chosen. I do recall reading one when I was about 10 and my fate was that I was eaten by zombies. It left me rather disturbed and to this day I am "scared" of zombies/zombie films.

[Wally]

I loved choose your own adventure books.

[jasonfletcher]

I enjoyed reading these books as well--glad they're back.

[Mommymeepa]

I love these books and so do my kids. I pick them up for them at the library sales I go to. I get them for like 25 cents.

The other fun memory I have is that my library used to have an old tub with the claw feet and it was full of pillows and it was by a window and you could lay in it and read. That is where I read most of my CYOA as a kid.

Thanks for bringing back the memory. :-)

[spudart]

The Abominable Snowman sounds like a fun one. I gotta pick some of these up.

[spudart]

So I go to add The Abominable Snowman to my Amazon wishlist. And the search results go to a Choose Your Own Adventure VIDEO. http://bit.ly/Abominable ON DVD! DVD VIDEO. choose your own adventure DVD!

Crazy. 11 possible storylines.