[Review]—Pick Your Fate in "Can You Survive Dracula?"

Can You Survive Dracula? (A Choose Your Path Book) by Ryan Jacobson, based on Bram Stoker's classic novel Dracula, will be published on October 11th, just in time for Halloween, by Lake 7 Creative, LLC.

Apart from The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, I didn't read many "choose your own adventure" books as a kid. After racking my brain, I can't think of one single reason why I haven't read these kinds of books. I recall my classmates reading them, but they didn't appeal to me for some reason. It might also be because I began reading young adult thrillers in fourth grade and progressed to Stephen King by the end of sixth grade. I read a simplified Scholastic version of Bram Stoker's Dracula in second grade, and not long after that, I read an old worn-out Dracula paperback courtesy of my grandmother. If you're wondering— yeah, I did have a few nightmares after reading the original version. I recall waking up in bed, paralyzed, with a blazing red-eyed bat flapping its wings in my room. Then I'd wake up to learn it was all a dream—or was it?

So, enough of my rambling. Let me share my opinions on Can You Survive Dracula? by Ryan Jacobson. This 152-page middle-grade novel retells Bram Stoker's classic vampire story in a kid-friendly manner. Transylvania, Strange Happenings, Dracula's Lair, Stranger and Friends, Carfax, Mina's Misery, and Return to the Castle are the seven chapters in the book, but getting from the start to the last will be difficult. The reader will come across various "What Will You Choose To Do?" options, where you will be able to decide the fate of the protagonist, Jonathan Harker. You choose possibilities for the character, but if you make the wrong decision, you'll get the awful "The End. Try Again." message and have to repeat the story and choose a new path, perhaps leading to a final encounter with Count Dracula.

There are directions for the stem activity "Build a Castle Wall," using uncooked spaghetti, marshmallows, toothpicks, and straws, which are available at the back of the book. Kids, please remember to have an adult monitor you while working on this project.

Overall, Can You Survive Dracula? is an exciting adventure tale that will have kids literally flipping the pages to find out how it ends.╌★★★★★