Chris Judge is the author-illustrator of The Lonely Beast, The Brave Beast, and The Snow Beast and the illustrator of the Danger Is Everywhere series by David O’Doherty. Chris Judge lives in Dublin.
Choose Your Own Adventure books where massive during the 80s. They allowed the young reader to pick up a book and be the hero; your choices determined if you live or die. Invariably, it was a game of leaving your finger in the previous page to make sure you could skip back should the fate that befell you not be to your liking. Well, its 2016 and just choosing your adventure is no longer enough, we want to interact even more with the story, we want to create our own adventure.
‘‘Create Your Own Alien Adventure’’ by Chris and Andrew Judge does just this, allowing the reader to interact even more with the story. They take away even more bricks that make up the fourth wall. To make drawing, folding tearing and twisting make sense within the story, you are tasked with helping Doodle folk when aliens land, but perhaps the likes of B’ob the alien are not all that bad.
The word you think of when playing with ‘‘Alien Adventure’’ is fun. There is a cheeky humour to the book that is very knowing. The Judges have written the book as if speaking to you directly and the people of Doodletown will ask you directly for help; could you draw some legs for me please? Almost every page has something to do other than just read; this means that you will need at least a pencil at hand as you read through the book.
Like most Choose Your Own books, this is aimed at the slightly more confident reader who is finding their feet reading on their own. If you have a cheeky chappie or chapess who likes some daft humour, they will love the way that the characters interact with the reader. The story itself is a little hamstrung by the format and you do feel like no matter what path you go down, it is a linear one, but this is an issue with most similar books too.
What sets this book apart is the sheer level of interactivity, but that does make the book a potential one time use only item. Even if you use light pencil, you are likely to prevent the book from being as much fun the next time. This is not a book that you will find in the library. I also feel that the doodle style of drawing makes the book accessible to kids, but also means that it does not look as good as it could have.
‘‘Create Your Own Alien Adventure’’ is a fun book for the impish and creative child in your life, but is one off entertainment. After you have ripped a hole in a book, it is hard to make it look brand new again. Original review on bookbag.co.uk