Choose Your Own Adventure

7 thoughts on “Choose Your Own Adventure”

1. What a blast from the past! Those books were the greatest kid literature.

   The most interesting/exciting thing about these books was the second-person perspective and end-of-page decisions that put the reader in control of the reading experience. I suppose those books could serve as a nice introduction to the rarely used second-person narrator, like the one in Jay Mcinerney’s Bright Lights, Big City.

   I had quite a few of the CYEAs: Space Vampire, Deadwood City, Supercomputer, Rock and Roll Mystery, and Invaders of Planet Earth. When I was done reading them I would sit down with a piece of paper and map out the endings so that I could find the “right” ending.

   I also remember being eternally frustrated by R.A. Montgomery’s The Brilliant Dr. Wogan. It seemed like every choice I made led to my death, Dr. Wogan’s death, or both of us being killed or captured.

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2. Damon, the fact that you mapped out the endings sheds some light on your psychological development as a child.
   Obviously I loved those books too, and they were a direct precursor to “game books” that I read later . I’m glad you mention a book written in second person–I could only think of short stories the other day when I was discussing voice and perspective with my AP kids. Second-person is kind of an underused/underrated voice.

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3. give me some examples of 2nd person narrative. i really want to read some and i can’t think of any right now.

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4. I can’t tell if you’re being an ass or not, Nick.
   David Foster Wallace writes a few of his short stories in the second person, and parts of Infinite Jest are written in second person.
   The last thing I remember reading in second person was a short story in Dave Egger’s How We Are Hungry (at least I think that was it…too lazy to check)

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5. The plot of Italo Calvino’s novel If on a winter’s night a traveller is your reading of Italo Calvino’s novel If on a winter’s night a traveller. As such much of the thing is told direct to you, the Reader.

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6. Sounds very cool, Reader. I’ve never read Calvino, other than a few pages of Invisible Cities. I suppose this is a gaping hole in my reading record that needs amending. Add it to the long long list.

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7. […] Example: Then check out our own post from last year on the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure series. […]

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