Item - Could You Be an Otter?

[Rating: 2/10]
[Recommended? NO]

The Survival gamebooks, for all their variety, follow the same format and aim to do precisely the same thing: invoke in younger readers the beginning steps of logic-based decising-making skills from the perspective of a wild animal (in this case, an otter). There's a delightfully educational approach that is at once encouraging and objective, and a uniquely semi-expansive photographic format that makes for an unusually immersive experience for children (at least superficially) - pages themselves consist of little text at times, though, instead offering a pictorical "go to this place by turning to that page". However, I found the writing to be rather uninspired, the book easy to sweep through in no time at all, the scoring system to be somewhat unremarkable, and the book itself to be a little more depressing than necessary. This is a book that had great intentions and brilliant potential - but the concept doesn't really translate into a replayable classic or even a book with much lasting literary worth once younger readers have gone through the survival game once. Again, it's a good idea with mismatched execution - and a tough book to recommend to most readers as well. ^^

(Mysteriously disappears into the shadows.)

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