Can You Survive: Sherlock Holmes by Ryan Jacobsen
15 Dec 2011 1 Comment
in 4 stars, fiction, young adult Tags: book, can you survive, choose your adventure, choose your path, middle grade, review, ryan jacobsen, sherlock holmes
Can You Survive: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Author: Ryan Jacobson
Pages [paperback]: 152
Summary:
Review:
I’ve loved ‘Choose Your Adventure’ books even since I could understand what they were, though unfortunately they don’t make as many as I’d like. And I haven’t read one in years, as they’re mainly geared toward elementary school kids. But this Sherlock Holmes edition is one I think can be enjoyed by a variety of ages, because while the wording is simple enough to be understood by children, the themes and stories can be appreciated by teens and adults as well.
I breezed through this book, finishing the entire thing in just over an hour. I loved being able to go back again and again to choose different paths for myself, because I seem to have a knack for making exactly the wrong decisions. Maybe I wouldn’t be such a great detective after all.
What I love about this is that you’re actually Sherlock Holmes, because the book is written in second person. That means ‘you’ are being addressed, so you’re also given responsibility for your life. (And Watson’s, sometimes. I have to apologize because I ended up killing him, more than once.)
It’s simple good fun. Nothing deep or dragging about it, which I actually liked. And the three stories involved are actually based off Sherlock Holmes tales. So if you need to get someone to start reading classic literature, this is one way to start them on it.
MYSTERIOUSLY CAPTIVATING. 4/5 stars
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