Item - Caravan

It's nice to see an entry in this series that explores a fairly obscure subject, as gamebooks for younger readers are generally more inclined to stick with very familiar topics. Transporting the reader to a completely different time and culture is a nice idea, and R. A. Montgomery certainly deserves some credit for continuing to explore the fascination with Tibet that he first demonstrated in The Abominable Snowman (and yes, the titular creature of that adventure does make an appearance here). Unfortunately, in spite of good intentions, the adventure isn't particularly successful. The short format here is not well-suited for a tale of an extended journey -- each path through the book tends to highlight a single isolated event in the journey, and many endings are fairly abrupt. It would be much more satisfying if the reader could feel more of the scope of the trip; a single long path with all of these events might have been nicer. There's also not a lot of space for exposition, so the reader doesn't get as much sense of history or culture as might be desirable -- children not already familiar with the subject matter are unlikely to take much away from this. A noble effort, but one that might have been better served by the main Choose Your Own Adventure series for older readers.

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