The book I chose to analyze is Choose your own adventure: The Cave of Time, which was the first book of the choose your own adventure series. On its own, the book stands as a rebel among normal books, presenting itself as an interactive book, where one must discontinuously read to harvest all the possible endings. On a personal level, the book’s significance emerges as I delve into the past. Growing up in poor neighborhood in Venezuela, not many books were available to me, and thus reading for fun was never a consideration until I moved to Canada at eight years of age and my quality of education increased.
Flash forward to a cramped elementary school library, a place that wouldn’t impress the average person. Yet a fifth grade me stood awestruck gazing at more books towering above than ever before. However, I couldn’t find a love for reading. Shifting my eyes from book to book, I would picture myself sitting down with each one for hours, being forced to read words that no matter how embellished and illustrative, didn’t include me in the outcome of the story.
As far as I was concerned, if I wanted to know how the story went I could just look it up online or ask a friend and nothing would change the ending or the intermittent stages of the story; Why would I bother reading the book? My attitude towards books quickly changed when I was expressing this thought to my friend and he recommended I read The Cave of Time, where the book’s story is all in the hands of the reader. Quickly plucking The Cave of Time from the library and opening it, I became enthralled with the book and would quickly flip back and forth between pages, curious to find all the different endings.
This book was different, it was interactive and it was the bright light that illuminated my love of reading. By putting me directly into the story and essentially making me the main character, it felt like there was stakes to the choices I made and made the book harder to drop. To me, this book was a stepping stone to reading for fun, and revealed the beauty of the story that books hold for me. Not only that, but it allowed me to hone my English skills, as I had only been accustomed to reading small sentences from magazines or bulletins in my daily life.
The Cave of Time, a book that impacted me so much, emerged all thanks to a simple idea that was originally not supported. It all began when Edward Packard, the author, came back from his work as a lawyer. Feeling completely exhausted, he could not come up with a bedtime story for his daughters, and asked them to give him ideas instead. Both of his daughters said something different, and he had to choose one story in between. But the next day he wondered, “what would it be like if I could write both stories? (Harmetz). Although the first book published of the series was The Cave of Time, the first book he wrote was The Adventure of Sugarcane Island in 1969. After finding a William Morris agent then submitting to about eight or nine major publishers in 1970, he did not find success.
In an interview for the New York Times, Packard admitted that they thought his idea was “more of a game than a book. ” After the rejections, his agent left him so he decided to “put ‘Sugar Cane Island’ in [his] desk drawer for five years. (Harmetz). Edward had put his dreams of being published aside until 1975, when he “saw an issue of Vermont Life describing a new children’s book publisher, Vermont Crossroads Press, that was looking for innovative ideas” (Harmetz). According to an article by Grady Henrix, a writer and journalist, Montgomery was a big advocate of experiential learning and he had been designing role-playing exercises for Abt Associates, a consulting company that applied social sciences to government and military problems.
Recognizing the value of Packard’s idea, he bought the book and announced a line of interactive stories for children called “The Adventures of You. ” (Henrix) Vermont Crossroads Press quickly published ‘Sugar Cane Island’ in 1976 for $3. 95 each and ended up selling 5,000 copies. For a brief moment in 1978, Lippincott published 6 of Edward’s books, but they never considered registering “Choose your Own Adventure” as a trademark. Both Edward and Montgomery knew that without the support of a big publisher, their marketing of the book would fall short.
So “Sugar Cane Island” ended up being published by Archway, a division of Pocket Books. The only problem was the Archway wanted to publish the books one at a time, and not as a series like Mr. Montgomery and Mr. Packard thought, so they kept looking until Joelle Belbourgo of Bantam accepted the offer in 1979 (History of CYOA). After Bantams help with marketing, the popularity of the books began to soar. The Cave of Time was the first book published by Bantam from the series and they set the title “Choose your own Adventure” as a trademark.
However, it can be seen that the books published after 1998 have Edward Packard as the author, but further research explained this issue. This name switch occurred because near 1999, Random House, who had acquired Bantam, seized the publishing of books in the series and abandoned the Choose your Own Adventure trademark. Montgomery realized this sooner than Packard and formed his own company called Chooseco, and registered the choose your own adventure trademark under his name and wrote his books under that banner (Henrix).
After the trademark collapse, Packard was contacted by Simon & Schuster , who wanted him to do books as apps, so he began his own trademark for the apps called U-Ventures. Edward began to republish The Cave of Time as an even more interactive book where the user has to type in information from previous pages, and his previous original work as well. In 2012, he released these books in print under the same trademark of U-Ventures, and as of today there are 260 million books in print, and 10 million more since the relaunch in 2005, continuing to be popular in schools to promote children reading.
Although The Cave of Time and interactive books were not supported by publishers in beginning, they are now taking over, and its significance can be outlined. This book proves to be tailored to our generation, one full of extensive readers with a short attention span, as suggested by Farhad Manjoo in “You Won’t Finish this Article”. The Cave of Time removes the middle parts of the book –where the development and description happens– and skip from beginning to end; giving the reader a jump from introduction to conflict to climax to resolution in a few flip of pages and discontinuous reading, relying solely on pictures for imagery.
The widespread support of a simplified and quick version of a book on a digital platform, that is, The Cave of Time, shows how readers of today prefer an entertaining and fast read, not a long and abstract read. This can be said because the love of these books is not only pertaining to children. The Cave of Time would appeal with young adults too because as suggested in article by Jeffrey Copeland, head of English at the University of Ohio, young adults can be entrapped by a choose vour own adventure books as well because of four main themes: the reader as a protagonist, plot format, levels of excitement generated, and availability.
He argues that because the books say “you” so much, a reader will be more inclined to read a book that is about them (reader as protagonist). But if you don’t like the story so far you can just go back and redo your mistake and be the writer of your own book (plot format). Then the varying plots and outlandish themes that are more creative than your typical coming of age novel (Levels of excitement). And lastly, availability, if you liked these books you are bound to find another because there are so many book in the series.
This shows that the short attention-span type of reading is not only restricted to children (Copeland). In conclusion, my book is one that captures the reader because of its interactive and fast paced nature, and it impacts the way we read because we will be more inclined to read a book that is all about themselves. Due to its widespread support that continues to increase with generations, it supports the thesis that we want to read books that give the reader a quick and exciting story, without extra information in the middle that will make the readers interest waiver
