They went by different names but when I was a kid there were a lot of what we today simply refer to as Choose Your Own Adventure books. I couldn’t be bothered to look up the different series but I do know Find Your Fate was another one. I read a LOT of these types of books. Okay, I was a nerd so I read a LOT of all types of books but still let me explain.
There were four in particular that stand out in my memory as extra siginificant for one reason or another.
I am not going to even attempt to look up their correct official titles so I will do my best to describe them as I can.
Super Mario Bros something or other.
Now there was one that was based on the Mario video games and one based on the Zelda video games of the NES era I got from my library. The Zelda book didn’t stick with me but I DO vividly, kinda sortaish at least, reading the Mario one. What I do remember is as you took the different paths you earned coins. Once you got to “The End”, whichever end befell your hero as you read, you added up all the coins you supposedly earned and then you were supposed to record your high score in a blank score page at the end of the book that was, well it was a library book you can fill in the rest lol.
I don’t remember anything about the story, like I said I read a lot of books as a kid, but I do remember that high score gimmick. I don’t remember if or what the gimmick for the Zelda book was or would have been because I only flipped through it and got bored right away.
Indiana Jones and the Eye of the Fates, I think.
I am not 100 percent certain what it was exactly called but I do know this was the only book of this nature I ever actually owned so it was the only one I read every path to get all the good endings. Again it was a really long time ago so I don’t remember many details but I do remember being intrigued and very excited to read each different path as I went back to the beginning over, and over again.
Transformers G1 book
I don’t remember the details, nor the title but I do remember checking out a Transformers choose your own adventure style type book from the library once. The only thing I do remember from it, aside from having names of robots I didn’t recognize from the cartoon, was getting to the page where, if I remember correctly, the G1 Minibot UFO Cosmos was blown out of the sky and apparently died. I was so shocked by that I put the book back and didn’t even bother reading it again.
Snow White
I am not sure if it was based on the original fairy tale, the Disney interpretation or something else but this was THE single most important book I ever read as a kid. I was in the 1st grade. I distinctly remember reading it for the first time and every single time I read the narrator refer to Snow White using female promouns I became gidding imaging when I read she or her it was talking about ME. This was about the time I started to realize I was a girl pretending to be not a girl. This put me on a long path of self discovery that ultimately led to my current life of transitioning as a transgender woma. This book changed my life.
That is not every single find your fate sort of book I read but those were the four that stuck with me the most for one reason or another.
