The New York Times had a pretty interesting article about the history of first person shooter games a while back. But I was surprised Choose Your Own Adventure books didn’t come up in the article. Though I tend to lean rather anti-technology on the spectrum these days (no time!), I did spend a lot of time in front of the computer in the 1980’s and early 1990’s playing old school computer games. I’m pretty fascinated by the development of games up until a point where they get too polished (interesting exhibit: The Art of Video Games, which was touring the art museum circuit last year). As a kid, I spent a lot of time with Infocom games (all text games which you can now apparently play on your iphone – weird), then moved up to King’s Quest and the Bard’s Tale, and then I just found other things to do, like write stories, get a job, and have kids.
But before all that, there was this golden time (in my mind) pre-computer, where it was board games and books, until the ColecoVision came into our house at least.
I was a somewhat obsessive reader as a child. I remember writing out a list on paper with a pen (this was pre-computer) of every single Choose Your Own Adventure book and then methodically working down the list–and, in addition, methodically working through each book so that I took every possible path, until the entire series was read to my satisfaction (check out this pretty interesting history of the series). I loved those books. I think you can get the same thrill from them as you do playing King’s Quest for instance – finally there you are, wandering through a strange world, able to make the life and death sort of decisions that you as a kid never get to make in real life (i.e. if you try to return from the future by activating the chronistan, turn to page 108. If you wait to see if you can find a less risky way to return to Earth time/space, turn to page 111).
So it was somewhat of a shock when Jasper unearthed my old Choose Your Own Adventures and I began reading to the kids only to find they’re just really….bad. The writing is devoid of any beauty or even at times coherence, perhaps because of all the jargon put in or else it’s trying to condense a complicated plot into such a brief space (example from House of Danger, #15: “Several thoughts spin across your mind. Was that man Henry Mardsen? Was it his house? Was he a counterfeiter? Or was he trying to escape from counterfeiters? Trying to escape seems more likely. And what about those chimpanzees? Could there be a counterfeiting animal trainer?”). They can be somewhat violent. When reading them, I find myself longing for the story to end now please, perhaps even making bad decisions (when reading to the kids, we all take turns picking what to do) so that it could be over sooner.
But I don’t think the books were written for me. My 7 year old loves them. For about two weeks straight he curled up on the heater and read through every Choose Your Own Adventure we had in the house. It’s sad, to me, that the pleasure from these books is now inaccessible for my overly critical adult brain. But it should probably be enough that my kid is really loving such books as much as I once did. I would venture to say back then there were less crossover with children’s and adult literature. My parents certainly never cracked open a Choose Your Own Adventure and I can kind of see why now. It’s nice in some ways I suppose (and a little bittersweet) that there are books out there whose joy is only available to you once when you’re young enough.
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- reading aloud