The Great Easter Bunny Adventure

Choose Your Own Adventure: Young Readers #40

by Edward Packard, Vincent Bell (Illustrator)

Readers can follow the Easter Bunny back and forth through time.

Genres: Choose Your Own Adventure

53 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Edward Packard attended and graduated from both Princeton University and Columbia Law School. He was one of the first authors to explore the idea of gamebooks, in which the reader is inserted as the main character and makes choices about the direction the story will go at designated places in the text.

The first such book that Edward Packard wrote in the Choose Your Own Adventure series was titled "Sugarcane Island", but it was not actually published as the first entry in the Choose Your Own Adventure Series. In 1979, the first book to be released in the series was "The Cave of Time", a fantasy time-travel story that remained in print for many years. Eventually, one hundred eighty-four Choose Your Own Adventure books would be published before production on new entries to the series ceased in 1998. Edward Packard was the author of many of these books, though a substantial number of other authors were included as well.

In 2005, Choose Your Own Adventure books once again began to be published, but none of Edward Packard's titles have yet been included among the newly-released books.

Reviews

[Josiah]

An Easter gamebook, and by Edward Packard? Count me in. You awaken on Easter morning as first dawn lights the sky, and spot a rabbit in the backyard. Is it the Easter bunny? You are surprised the bunny lets you scoop him in your arms. You take him to your room, eager to show your family once they get out of bed. Dozing off, you wake with a start to see the bunny listening intently at your door. You release him and he runs out of the house, but as you follow you realize the landscape is utterly changed. This isn't your neighborhood, and your house is gone. The bunny lopes down the right fork of a trail ahead, but should you go after him or walk toward the farmhouse down the left fork?

If you call out, the bunny answers, admitting you've traveled back in time. He'll escort you home right away if you wish, though you get a surprise after crawling inside your bedroom window. Maybe you'd rather accompany the bunny to the future before heading home; he takes you to an ice age with freezing weather and heavy snow to trudge through. The bunny won't allow anything dire to happen even if you give up and flop in the snow, but persevere and you'll end up in a pleasant spot before waking up snug in your bed Easter morning.

What if you parted ways with the bunny at that first fork in the road? The family living on the farm is cordial, but shows concern at the wild story you tell. Run back to the road to catch up with the bunny, and you find yourself in a wooded area three hundred years before your time, where you might meet a pair of Indian braves. The bunny is nearby for rescue if you want to leave; he could take you further back in time before the Indians lived, or even to the era of dinosaurs. Will you haul a dinosaur egg home as a souvenir, or drift back into the more distant past, before sentient life? Maybe you allowed the Indian braves to lead you to their village, where you meet their families. Exploring another part of the woods could see you meet a settler family in the year 1687, who happen to have found a familiar bunny with the power to send you home. Whatever adventure you prefer, the bunny acts as your guardian angel on this Easter morning voyage through time.

Quirky this book is, but loads of fun. An ending or two delves into the concept of birth, death, and regeneration that Easter is all about, though in terms applicable to secular readers. Perhaps the book's best attribute is Vincent Bell's illustrations: moody and panoramic, they are some of my favorite in any Choose Your Own Adventure. I rate The Great Easter Bunny Adventure two and a half stars; it doesn't rank among the elite gamebooks, but is a highlight of the Bantam Skylark Choose Your Own Adventure series, and has been part of my family's Easter tradition most of my life.

[Alana G]

The Easter bunny adventure by Edward Packard is a story that you can choose what you do and get 20 or more different story's it was good because I didn't have to get a new book I could just get a other story in the same book. I rated it a 4 because it was a good book.I recommend it to anyone who likes to choose their own story.

[Leo B]

The Great Adventure is a choose your own adventure book. it is set on Easter.you can go to the farm or go after the Easter Bunny.the story has a lot of paths to follow.my favrit is when you go back home. if you like adventure books than you should read it.

[Jugglerilluminati Ur Mom!]

there are a few thing I leanred from this book:
1. YOU MUST OBEY GANDHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII THE KING OF CURRY
2. PLS WORHSIP ILLUMINATI PLSSS OR GIT SHREKT M89 LOOOL
3. PLS OBEY THE ILLUMIGANDHI WHICH IS GANDHI/KING OF CURRY + ILLUMINATI KUFNRMDE M9989808908098 LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL GITHSKREMT9 GIT NOSCKOPEDDDD HAHAHAHGA GAWDIEM GANDI GANDIEM GAWDIEM+GANDI= GAAAAAAAANDIIIIIIIIEM LOL :D

[Sheila Read]

the adventures that I went through when I was bored I just read these books over and over again you would never get to the end of the story.