Batman: Super-Villains Strike: Choose-Your-Fate Adventure Book

by Michael Teitelbaum

Batman’s instincts tell him that Catwoman, The Riddler, Mr. Freeze, and Poison Ivy are all involved. But how could that be? They are all behind bars at Arkham Asylum. Batman knows these super-villains would never agree to work together…or would they?

Is a copycat criminal to blame? How could one person be in all these places at once? Follow the clues with Batman and then make your own choices for how the story will go. Can you help Batman solve this mystery? Will you be able to put the criminal—or criminals—behind bars and save Gotham City from chaos?

These DC Super Hero “interactive” stories will incorporate fabulous DC art along with puzzles and games to guide the reader through multiple outcomes of the story. The puzzles and games will appear at random chapter endings providing clues to help the reader decide where to go next. Familiar interactive elements, for readers otherwise absorbed with online games and other digital devices, these original concept books will add a new level of excitement and challenge for the reader

Genres: Childrens, Middle Grade

144 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 24, 2012

About the author

Michael Teitelbaum has been a writer and editor of children’s books for more than thirty years. He worked on staff as an editor at Golden Books, Grossett & Dunlop, and Macmillan. In addition to The Scary States of America, Michael’s fiction work includes The Very Hungry Zombie: A Parody, and The Very Thirsty Vampire: A Parody both done with artist extraordinaire Jon Apple, published by Skyhorse. His non-fiction work includes writing Jackie Robinson: Champion for Equality, published by Sterling, and The Baseball Hall of Fame, a 2-volume encyclopedia, published by Grolier. He is also the series editor of Great Escapes, true-life acts of incredible courage, published by Harper Collins.
Michael has always had an interest in the paranormal, despite a rather normal childhood in Brooklyn, NY. These days, Michael lives with his wife, Sheleigah, and two talkative cats in an (as yet unhaunted) 180-year-old farmhouse in the beautiful Catskill Mountains of upstate New York.

Reviews

[usagi ☆ミ · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short review for this one, as this book isn’t too long, and it’s pretty simple. To be honest, I’m a bigger fan of Marvel, but I love the Batman bit of the DC canon, too. And this one includes one of my favorite villains, Poison Ivy! (Had it included Harley Quinn, I would have been even more into it. Just sayin’, DC/Tor/Macmillan, for the next book…) Anyway, this book isn’t just about choosing your own superhero adventure, but it’s also chock full of brain teasers, games, and puzzles for the MG crowd. But I’m an adult, and I liked it a lot. So, with this book, you too can become Batman and fight crime in Gotham City – and it’s a whole lot of fun.

I think that this book would have been even more fun and versatile had you been able to choose whether to play either Batman or one of the main villains – as much as I love Batsy, I would have also loved a challenge in becoming one of the villains. So with this book, you become Batman to investigate various Bat Calls around the city. At the end of each chapter, you get two (or three) choices in where to go next (as in, “if you want to do ___, turn to page ___ now”). I found a lot of the time that I made bad choices (and note, all of these choices are totally blind, and you really don’t have much control over what happens to you next!), and got duped by Poison Ivy, the Riddler, or Catwoman multiple times.

But what’s fun is that even if you screw up, you can start all over again, and a lot of the time in between losing to the villains, you have to complete puzzles (crosswords, cyphers, and so forth) in order to get to your next page of adventure. I think this will be great for the elastic little brains of the MG crowd, which will hopefully enjoy this as much as I did. They’re not too difficult, but they’ll definitely keep you occupied for awhile.

Final verdict? Definitely worth the read/play. This book is a lot of fun. “Batman: Super-Villains Strike” is now available through DC/Tor/Macmillan in North America. If you need something to keep your MG-age kid occupied on your summer road trip? This is definitely the book for you!

(posted to goodreads, shelfari, and birthofanewwitch.wordpress.com)

[Amy Fournier · Rating 4 out of 5]

*I won this book from a giveaway on Bookish Babe's blog courtesy of Tor.

I am not doing a full review of this book, but will just say that it is very cute and fun! My daughter loves being able to decide where the story goes next. Sometimes depending on what you choose, you will end up back on a chapter you have already read, but overall it is done well. Besides getting to choose what to do next, there are cute little puzzles to complete to help you make your decisions such as word searches, word scrambles, and mazes. I think that this is a great book to keep kids entertained and even enjoyable to read to a child who isn't old enough to read it themselves, but can tell you what they want to do next in the story.

[Jennifer Priester · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the story/stories, but the chapter 40 puzzle isn't as easily solved as it should be due to there being an I in the first scrambled word when the letter is supposed to be a T.
I really like how there are often puzzles to solve giving this book more of a Batman feel and making it stand out even further from most traditional choose your own adventure books.
Besides the puzzle misprint the only other problem I had with this book is that each choice tells the reader to go to a certain chapter without saying what page number the chapter begins on making it harder to navigate than other books of this type.

[April · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I have never really reviewed a Choose Your Own Adventure sort of book before, I thought I would format and do this review of Batman: Super-Villains Strike by Michael Teitelbaum a little bit differently than I would a conventional book, and just break down the aspects that I thought were important to mention.
Read the rest of my review here link goes live 9/23/12

[Joel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read it many times and one time I finished in one night

[Joel]

I Love it I read it about 1 thousand times and it is better every time