The Attack on Pearl Harbor: An Interactive History Adventure

This is a very hard review to write. Some people will probably massively disagree with what I have to say but I call them as I see them.

The book is of the old choose-your-own-adventure type where you have multiple choices to make which can lead to different endings. Those books tended to deal with fanciful topics like vampires, space aliens, monsters, etc. This book deals with actual history.

You can play one of three parts. You can be a nurse caring for the men during the attack. This part is last and somewhat less developed than the other two parts. The second part is an American sailor during the attack.

The first part, though, is playing the role of a Japanese pilot during the attack. Here's the first thing that bothers me. This type of book is written for younger readers, and what they are asking them to do here is to play the part of someone who hates the United States and has vowed to kill as many Americans as they can.

Sound familiar? Try 9-11 and other terrorist groups and actions. The descriptions, I will add, are quite graphic.

Problem 2. Again, keep in mind this is for younger readers. There are 19 endings. 8 of them in this book end up with the reader being killed. The deaths involve a Japanese pilot acting like a kamikaze and diving his wounded plane into buildings. There are endings involving people being blown up, burned to death and/or drowned. Thus, around 40% of the endings involve the reader dying horribly.

I don't think this is a good approach for the younger readers, unless the author is trying to teach about the horror of dying and the horror of war but somehow I don't think that was the aim.

I'm not sure how I'd change it, but I am quite bothered about the book the way it is now.

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