CYOA

My CYOA analysis and map will be on Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night. I chose this text because I enjoyed it, but I also saw it as a challenge to try mapping it out. There are so many different narratives, stories, settings, and characters, within this story, so this will be complex, but it is exactly the type of text that needs a map to follow. As the article describes about CYOA making the reader the main character, it made me think of how interactive Calvino’s text is in the beginning, giving a lot of attention to the reader. Although the map is a bit on the confusing side, I think If on a Winter’s Night will be a good book to do this with because, similarly to CYOA, in a sense you can choose which kind of adventure or book within the book that you like best as the reader.

I was unfamiliar with the Choose Your Own Adventure stories. I’m sure I have at some point seen a few at libraries or thrift stores in passing, though. It is probably a good thing I did not grow up reading these because I am already indecisive enough! I can definitely relate to the writer of this article. Overall from just reading this, I think the idea or concept of CYOA is super creative and interactive. I thought Semuels’ observation of how this text might have influenced her in a sense that, by being able to just search for the ending she liked best, she had more control over her life than in actuality. Perhaps this is exactly the reaction that the authors wanted their young readers to have: a comforting feeling that they could control at least one thing in their life, no matter what may be going on in reality.