Choose Your Own Adventure

Blogging, family, happiness, health related issues, humor, lessons learned, reading, Teaching and Education 1 Minute

I remember when our oldest son was around 10 years old how much he enjoyed the Choose Your Own adventures series of books.

Here’s a description from Wikipedia:

Choose Your Own Adventure, or Secret Path Books is a series of children’s gamebooks where each story is written from a second-person point of view, with the reader assuming the role of the protagonist and making choices that determine the main character’s actions and the plot’s outcome. Choose Your Own Adventure, as published by Bantam Books, was one of the most popular children’s series during the 1980s and 1990s, selling more than 250 million copies between 1979 and 1998.

While I may have only read one of them just to see what it was like, I always thought it was a clever idea for a book series.

The books came back to me tonight as I was trying to think of something to write about. I had already scanned through The Wall Street Journal, the HuffPost, Seth Godin, and Fred Wilson, to no avail.

Then I went to StudyFinds, and I was overwhelmed with so many appealing topics to select from. So I thought rather than choosing just one that may have the most appeal to me, but not to you (notice how I am writing in the second person).

So I thought I would offer you a choice among a few different options, all of which I found interesting.

Here are the choices, all linked to their respective brief story. Enjoy…

Have fun choosing your own adventure, perhaps you’ll fin out if time really does fly…

 

Published by Jim Borden

A 60-something guy trying to figure out the world, and his place in it. Happily married for 40-plus years, three wonderful sons. Accounting teacher, fitness enthusiast, blogger, reader.

Published

73 thoughts on “Choose Your Own Adventure”

  2. I definitely remember the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books. They were such a thing for a few years. I did sometimes go back to read what might have happened if I had chosen a different path. I see life as a choose your own adventure experience.

    Some f these topics are intriguing, but I think I would like to know more about how artificial intelligence can unknowingly influence our dating and voting decisions. That might at least explain why so many people voted for President Trump twice. That, to me, is one of life’s most confounding mysteries, especially after four years of evidence.

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    1. I think my son would check out all the possible ways the stories could go.

      And yes, it would be interesting to see what the impact was of all of those fake social media ads during the elections…

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  4. My sister and I had a lot of fun with those Choose your own adventure books! The perfect thing for long car rides! The person who created them was pretty smart! 🙂
    I can see how rudeness can lead to life and death mistakes. If you have just been the rudest customer in Starbucks and then you fall over with a heart attack is someone going to want to help you?
    Yes, why does time fly when having fun?
    You do have a wide assortment of topics to pick from!

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  8. I went with the earworm post, and sang it to myself. Now I won’t get any sleep tonight. But maybe this is why some babies cry all night. If they get sang to sleep by their mommies, they get an earworm. And then they cry all night, and their mommies are up all night trying to sing them to sleep again. Who knew?

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  9. Omg you just triggered fond memories within me. I miss CYOA books. I remember the ones where you had inventory sheets and even dice to add to the fun of it all. I’ve searched for them online, but nothing beats playing with books. I might actually go and look to buy some now. Thanks for this post!

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  10. I could write a whole series of blogs choosing a different path at many stages of my life – would we start with leaving school, the first time we get a choice? Our children had those books and we still have them in the book collection saved for the grandchildren. I think you should blog about when humans first arrived in North America because 30,000 years isn’t that long ago…

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    1. Would you have left school as soon as you had the choice? For the most part, I enjoyed school. I think we may have given away most of our CYOA books. And I guess in the grand scheme of things, 30,000 years is not that long ago…

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  11. When greeted with such a selection of reading, I suddenly got a huge case of FOMO and read them all. I don’t remember these books, but it seems their popularity would have peaked while I was in the service. Sounds like an interesting concept.

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  14. 1) Isn’t Niagara Falls in Greenland or something? 2) Those are great books, I especially recommend the one about Atlantis, where you can undergo a painless operation that allows you to breathe underwater after your submarine crashes. 3) I haven’t clicked any of the links yet.

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  17. I loved choose your own adventure books. I only got a few. However, I ended up reading it at least twice – first was how I would choose it if it was me, and second, to see all of the alternate endings. Good stuff!

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  18. So have you bought your e-nose yet? This could be very helpful in detecting cancer, diabetes. Just think of what would happen if all K teacher had e-noses. Talk about preventive medicine. And high school counselors – kids could go to continuing education – or not based on how the nose led them.

    I have seen an adventure book like that online, too. They are so cool. I love your post and all the choices. That would keep me busy all day 🙂

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