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Item - Cool School

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Item-Level Details

nev's Thoughts:

This is an odd one. It's not so much a "choose your own adventure" as it is a "choose how the story unfolds". Most of the decisions are more about what you'd like to happen. For example "If the teacher is nice to you, turn to X, if the teacher is nasty, turn to Y." Along with that, the world is not necessarily consistent - in one path the principal is a woman, in another it's a man - and this is the case for many of the story-lines - characters and situations can play out in vastly different ways.

Of note is that the author tries to make 'you' non-gender specific. Names for other characters are androgynous, so when you get passed a note from 'Sam' and go on a date, it could either be a boy or a girl. Note that I say 'tries.' He doesn't quite pull it off - I asked my daughter whether she realised this and she said that she thought the main 'you' character was definitely a boy.

Also of note, there's a nice cameo of the author's book Tomorrow When the World Began and there are a lot of references to Australian stuff.

Oh and one more thing, except for a lone exception where you have 3 choices, the paragraph structure is a binary tree - always 2 choices and no decision ever interacts with any other path.

More reviews by nev

Users Who Own This Item: Demian, jdreller, knginatl, Ryuran333, waktool (Original, AU 1st printing (large); Original, AU 1999 reprint (small); Reissue, AU 2014 reprint)
Users Who Want This Item: NEMO, Pseudo_Intellectual

First printing

Series: You Make It Happen no. 1
Item: Cool School
Author: Marsden, John
Illustrator: Stolz, Roman
Date: 1995
Length: 200 pages (89 sections)
Number of Endings: 44

1997 reprint





Series: You Make It Happen no. 1
Item: Cool School
Author: Marsden, John
Illustrator: Stolz, Roman
Date: 1997
ISBN: 0330358677 / 9780330358675
Length: 200 pages (89 sections)
Number of Endings: 44
Cover Price: AU$8.95
Special Thanks: Thanks to Ken G. for pointing this title out and providing front/back cover scans.

Later printing




Series: You Make It Happen no. 1
Item: Cool School
Author: Marsden, John
Illustrator: Stolz, Roman
Length: 200 pages (89 sections)
Number of Endings: 44
Cover Price: AU$10.95
Special Thanks: Thanks to Ryan Lynch for the scans.

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