The first eight years of my life, or at least my memories of them, center around a small town in the southeast of Colorado called Fowler. As far as little prairie towns go, they don’t get much more quintessential than Fowler. A half hour drive from Pueblo and boasting a population of around 1,200, there wasn’t ever a whole lot to do in this remote collection of houses and dirt roads.
(Or was there? Crazed bike rides away from the neighbor’s psycho dog that always jumped its fence … fishing for crawdads in the irrigation ditches on the south edge of town …the “Training Hills”, a small collection of dirt ramps and man-made jumps perfect for the aforementioned bikes … the always intriguing risk of seeing a snake or tarantula …)
OK, OK, there was a ton of stuff to do. But I’ve always been a very “interior” person, if you will, and I got into books in a big way as soon as I learned to read. I’d devour pretty much any story I could get my hands on. There weren’t a lot of options in a little place like Fowler to find books, but our whole family packed into the station wagon like we were the Griswolds and took a trip every couple of weeks up to Pueblo. Among other things, we’d usually stop by the public library. I’d wander the shelves for hours, happy and content, until my mom often had to drag me away with a big stack of new stories in my hands. Chapter books like Amelia Bedelia and Mrs. Piggle Wiggle were fun and funny with their stories of clumsiness and bizarre cures. Collections of Greek and Norse myths ignited my imagination with thoughts of cyclops and harpies and magic. Doctor Doolittle, with his journeys around the world, planted a seed of passion for both geography and animals that lives on in me to this day.
So, needless to say, my thirst for adventures of the imagination was at a peak from a young age. One day at the library I noticed a stand-alone rack of paperbacks I hadn’t seen before. The books were thin, all the covers had the same white borders, but each bore different fantastic artwork showing creatures and people of every kind. On one was a creepy-looking king whose face looked to be mostly made of beard. Another showed a UFO shooting laser beams at other flying craft. Yet another looked to be set in some strange underwater kingdom. “Choose Your Own Adventure”? Choose … my … OWN … ?? Whaaaaaat?!?
The more I perused this short rack of little books, the more I wanted to just pick up the whole thing and take them ALL to the checkout counter. My mom suggested a more reasonable cap of 4 or 5, so I grabbed the lowest-numbered handful I could find (I think realizing even then that if it’s a series, it’s best to start at the beginning, right?) and started reading before we even got home. Carsickness be damned, I’m exploring a Cave of Time here!!
The “Choose Your Own Adventure” series began in 1979 and has sold over a quarter of a billion copies. Widely ranked as one of the most popular book series for its age group through the 80s and 90s, the term “gaming book” really began here. They were conceived of by a man named Edward Packard because of his children’s insistence that he give each of them a different ending, of their choosing, to his bedtime stories. The books have a unique narrative viewpoint, told from the second person, putting the reader in place as the protagonist of every story and forcing them to make choices as if they themselves were really saving a colony of innocent Martians or jousting in a medieval tournament. It becomes an experience very much akin to gaming, in that sometimes the choices one makes are wildly unsafe for the main character. I can’t tell you how many times “I” died while reading those books.
It became a challenge in itself, having to go back to the beginning, sometimes skipping the pages I’d already read, sometimes not, making different choices this time … Aaaaghh! My face got eaten off by a dragon this time? Ok, I guess I’ll go back and try again …
That was what made it such an adventure for me, though, I think. The notion that something unexpected was lurking nearby, like my brother and I having to ride closer to the psycho dog’s house to retrieve our lost frisbee even though we knew what happened last time, made the experience of reading an adventure I was not expecting but could not get enough of. That ability to immerse myself fully into a book is one I hold onto with pride, and one I cherish deeply. It’s taken me to worlds and on journeys I never expected.
Pages, Pixels, Grapes and Grooves 
Excellent post, as always.
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SPACE PATROL!!!!
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Just read this — so good! I never associated these books with gaming, but there it is. Of course.
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