Could you escape Alcatraz? An interactive survival adventure by Eric Braun

Lauren Tarshis' I Survive series continues to be popular, with new titles and a graphic novel version coming out in 2020. I'm often busy recommending read-alikes and one of the series I turn to most often is Capstone's You Choose titles. You Choose covers history, myth, and general survival in a Choose Your Own Adventure format. Rather than the fantasy stories in the original CYOA, Capstone focuses on nonfiction, basing the stories on true historical events or places and including a final chapter explaining the true story, and, in the case of this title, real escape attempts, discussion questions, suggestions for further reading, and internet links.

Personally, the CYOA format gives me the heebie-jeebies. I can't stand flipping back and forth and end up just reading straight through, which doesn't work very well either. However, most readers really enjoy this format and combining the two things, survival and CYOA, is pretty genius.

This particular title is part of a four-volume set of escapes and includes escaping a deserted island, Paris catacombs, and the Tower of London. I think the other titles might be better than this one. It's exciting and interesting - it offers readers the choice to be smart, strong, or clever, giving sample back stories of prisoners, and then testing different, real-life escape methods. But it's... troubling. One of the discussion questions does ask if it's harder to root for escapees from Alcatraz because they were all "violent criminals." But some of the back stories portray the men sympathetically - and it's hard to see a good reason to suggest readers imagine themselves as hardened and violent criminals anyways. As is traditional, most of the options end with you, as the main character recaptured and sentenced to solitary imprisonment or dead.

Verdict: This particular volume isn't my favorite, but I think in general kids will enjoy the set, especially those who like survival stories and history. I have some reservations about this particular title, and I'm definitely planning to move most of this series into fiction, but overall it's worth adding.

ISBN: 9781543573923; Published August 2019 by Capstone; Review copy provided by publisher, donated to the library