In the ‘80s and ‘90s, the most coveted of library books were any of the many Choose Your Own Adventure novels aka Gamebooks, a subcategory of fiction that lets the reader participate in the story by making choices about where the story is going to go. Though there were a few examples of books where you’d choose from different narrative paths prior to Choose Your Own Adventure, the concept really took off with this series that had you encountering an abominable snowman, or traveling through time, or going on a search for a unicorn… the choices were endless, and it was awesome.
Written from a second-person point of view (that’s where the book focuses on “you” as the main character rather than “I” or “he/she/they”), CYOA books were written for kids around 7-14 years old. The plot would revolve around the protagonist, you, taking on a role relevant to the adventure at hand. Were you a mountain climber, race car driver, spy, doctor? Regardless, after you got a few pages into the book, you were then presented with a choice about where you wanted the story to go next, and would then turn to the page in the book that correlated to your choice. As you continued on through the story, eventually you’d reach an ending, but whether it was good, bad, or somewhere in between was, of course, part of the fun.
The series was based upon a concept created by Edward Packard in the mid-’70s. He got the idea one night when he was having a hard time coming up with a new bedtime story to tell his daughters, so he asked them what they thought should happen. His daughters came up with different paths to take, and then he thought up an ending for each path they suggested. With this basic premise in mind, he developed the idea into a book called The Adventures of You on Sugarcane Island, though it took some time for him to get it published.
Eventually, Packard was finally able to sell the idea to Bantam Books, who went on to publish 184 books in the original Choose Your Own Adventure vein, as well as tons more spinoff variants, such as a Walt Disney series, a Choose Your Own Nightmare series, and even some Star Wars-themed books. Bantam published the books from 1979-1998, during the height of their popularity, but eventually let the trademark lapse, leaving the door open to R.A. Montgomery, the man who originally helped Packard bring the series to consumers (and wrote some of the books himself), and his new company Chooseco to buy the rights and start publishing more books.
The Choose Your Own Adventure books are often credited with heightening the popularity of Role Playing Games, including Dungeons and Dragons. Indeed, if you watch Stranger Things, you’ll notice that the font for the title cards looks very similar to the CYOA title text of the ‘80s and ‘90s (not to mention the kids playing D&D in the show). The CYOA brand also expanded in 2018 when Z-Man Games released a cooperative board game called Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger, inspired by R. A. Montgomery’s book in the series that has you trying to survive the House of Danger by making narrative choices, and even has multiple possible endings just like the books.
But in the end, even with all of these spinoffs, reprints, and games, nothing can replace how the original books made all of us feel back in the ‘80s and ‘90s when we’d never experienced a book series quite like Choose Your Own Adventure before. But what about you? Did you read the Choose Your Own Adventure series? What were some of your favorites? Let us know in the comments!
- The series initially had only so-so sales, until someone in marketing had the idea to give 100,000 books to libraries across the country, making the books an “overnight” success.
- Between 1979-1999, over 250 million Choose Your Own Adventure books were printed in 38 languages, making the series the fourth bestselling children’s book series of all time.
- As the series progressed, the length of the plot threads increased, and as a result, the number of endings decreased. The earliest books often had nearly forty possible endings, while later titles had as few as eight.
- Occasionally, a particular set of choices will throw you into a loop where you repeatedly reach the same page (often with a reference to the situation being familiar). At that point, to go any further, you have to start the story over from the beginning.
- The series relaunched in 2005, reprinting some of the original tales (they cannot republish any written by Packard himself as he has started his own imprint), and producing entirely new stories as well.
- The series initially had only so-so sales, until someone in marketing had the idea to “seed” 100,000 books in libraries across the country, making the books an “overnight” success.
- Between 1979-1999, over 250 million Choose Your Own Adventure books were printed in 38 languages, making the series the fourth bestselling children’s book series of all time.
- As the series progressed, the length of the plot threads increased, and as a result, the number of endings decreased. The earliest books often had nearly forty possible endings, while later titles had as few as eight.
- Occasionally, a particular set of choices will throw you into a loop where you repeatedly reach the same page (often with a reference to the situation being familiar). At that point, to go any further, you have to start the story over from the beginning.
- The series relaunched in 2005, reprinting some of the original tales (they cannot republish any written by Packard himself as he has started his own imprint), and producing entirely new stories as well.
