A Story With Several Endings: Which One Do You Choose?
Children’s literature has always been a magical world to explore, creating, every so often, different types of books to engage several different types of readers.
During the time of the 80s and 90s, a type of book came to the bookstores that would mark a before and after in children’s literature, since it was, nothing more and nothing less, a story with several endings.
Such was the success of this type of books that they became one of the most requested collections in bookstores and the most loaned in libraries. Today we tell you a little more about this type of book so that you remember your childhood and enjoy the memories.
What were these kinds of books like?
It was in 1972 when the first of the stories with various endings appeared. Its title, Mission to Planet L, was presented as a playbook with the aim that children would enjoy while encouraging reading.
However, it was not until years later, in 1980, when the book collection began to be marketed that would be the definitive boom in this type of children’s reading. Choose your own adventure gave its name to the collection in Spanish, which due to its success was translated into more than 40 languages and sold more than 250 million copies worldwide.
More specifically, in Spain it was the Timun Mas publishing house that decided to publish the collection and distribute it throughout the country so that young Spaniards could begin to enjoy these stories. This type of book had, and has, since several more books have now emerged in this line, the objective of interacting with the reader.
Pages will fly back and forth depending on the reader’s decision about how the story will unfold.
The structure of the books
Always narrated in the second person, the writer wants to offer the reader the feeling that he is himself the protagonist of the story from the first moment.
After a short text, the questions begin and, with them, the decisions to be made by the reader. If you decide to take an action, this will take you to a page that the author indicates; If you decide to make another decision, the page will be a different one. There were no bad decisions when choosing one path or another, since they will all be equally valid to continue immersed in history.
Collections from a story with various endings
The original collection we talked about previously, Choose your own adventure, is made up of a total of 90 books. However, due to the success of the stories, other collections emerged, highlighting Choose Your Own Blue Globe Adventure .
This collection is intended for young readers under 10 years of age and, therefore, differentiated from the original by containing fewer pages. The collection, again, was a success and houses 40 titles so that all children can enjoy them.
What is the goal of a story with multiple endings?
This type of book has two clear objectives. In the first place, that it is the reader himself who makes the decision to direct the story towards one plot or another, thus being a participant and decision-maker in it. Second, it is a good resource for working in the classroom, especially in primary education.
This type of book makes children want to know, in addition to the ending they have chosen, the others that are incorporated, so they will be encouraging reading. Additionally, books with multiple endings provide the ability to create classroom discussions about the ending that is best suited to the story and motif. In short, we will make children read and develop their oral expression in a very simple way.
New technologies drive these books again
Although these books are no longer published, many old libraries and bookstores still have copies, as they are a type of book that encourages reading and attracts the attention of children.
The Choose Your Own Adventure publishing house , which launched the original version of these books that were marketed around the world, wanted to innovate with the arrival of new technologies in children’s lives.
For this reason, it has wanted to launch a children’s cartoon application with the same objective as books. Through electronic devices, the story will unfold and it will be the little reader who has to make a series of decisions to discover the end of the story.
