Choose Your Own Adventure 13: Choose from 28 Possible Endings

There’s multiple reasons why I didn’t want this short little book to slip through my fingers before I had a chance to write about it. I’ll let sentimentality be the first.

Few sections in the children’s wing of the Public Library grabbed my attention in the early ’90s than the Choose Your Own Adventure shelf. The tub of Garfield books was my first go-to, of course, and the Tintin. But with my remaining minutes, I just had to find out which of these Adventure books I hadn’t yet read. I’ve found only a few assorted copies floating around thrift stores in the intervening years, so I get them when I see them. Reading through this book a few weeks ago (alone, not with my kids) was a huge step into my past.

Another reason I wanted to review this book is that I’ll likely not review any other from the series, making this representative of them all—unless I stumble across the one where the protagonist gets to become different animals and to explore what it feels like to be both the hunted and the hunter; few books have ever stoked my imagination as much as that little book did for me at 9 years old! The structure of these books is quite simple, and a full adventure can be read in minutes, yet with each failure and victory, the reader is intrigued to consider: “What if I hadn’t chosen such-and-such? How differently might the story have turned out for me?”

I actually returned to these books as an investigator more than as a reader. I’ve long had the idea of writing such an adventure with my kids, giving them a scenario and asking what each would do, making their answers part of the longer story and turning it into a fun keepsake for the family. Mostly, I have that idea while we’re driving in the car, and I just wish I had a stack of 3×5 cards to record their answers! I never do.

So instead of writing a family story like this, I decided to try writing a real-deal Choose-Your-Own-Adventure (but with a less copy-writ name). In preparation, I dissected this book (as well as Book 2, Journey Under the Sea) to see how many choices, levels of choices, and possible endings there were in each. Here’s the statistics I came up with for The Abominable Snowman:

• The book is introduced with 3 pages of story before the first choice. I called this “Stage 1.” Every decision-point brought the story into the next stage.
• The shortest scenario had just 5 stages (8 pages), and the longest 10 stages (21 pages).
• During the 6th, 7th, and 8th stages, there were 16 different scenarios playing out (half of which concluded, the other half continuing on to the next stage).
• Throughout this first book, I saw only 3 shared scenes.
• There’s no more than 200 words per page, with loads of illustrations on its total of 116 pages.

There are a number of vocabulary signposts in the decisions that can help the reader along as she tries to make the best decisions possible. I noted the following:

• The correct story (or at least those with the happier endings) always included positive verbs: Go, continue, accept, listen, agree, go on, etc.
• The stories that ended in bad luck, injury, or death usually followed the more negative verbs: Stay, stop, decline, reject, quit, split, etc.
• The choices weren’t always verbs, however. They included other options like: Place 1 or place 2? Truth or lie? Alone or together? Door or path? Camera or ax?

Recognizing that our lives are made of 10,000 small choices daily, you can see how such a book can spark a young person’s imagination. Books like these offer a safe place for children to explore some “What if?” scenarios, and while this book sometimes took turns into the supernatural and science-fiction, it’s still an incredibly entertaining concept that can help reinforce some positive traits like courage, risk-taking, cooperation, foresight, kindness, and self-preservation.

Who knows if R.A. Montgomery planned his books to be used as a tool in teaching ethics in moral dilemmas, but that’s honestly how they turn out! I think librarians across the country should stock their shelves with these books and let kids discuss their favorite scenarios, exploring how their decisions to “go, listen, agree,” etc. helped them succeed and to question why some decisions of “stay, reject, quit,” etc. ended in defeat.

I loved these books and I hope my kids will get into them soon. I’ve already written half of my own attempted Adventure and reading these old books again has rekindled a latent passion that I hope motivates me to finish. I guess I have a choice (don’t I?) to continue or to quit. Which adventure do you think I will choose?

©2023 E.T.