[(Bram Stoker's Dracula )] [Author: Ryan Jacobson] [Sep-2012]

Choose Your Path #5

by Ryan Jacobson

Become a vampire hunter from classic literature, and make choices to survive Bram Stoker’s Dracula in this interactive Choose Your Path adventure.You are Jonathan Harker, an ordinary man thrust into an extraordinary situation. You have been tricked and imprisoned. You’ve come face to face with a monster and left behind to suffer a terrible fate. Now, you must put an end to Count Dracula’s evil reign. Assemble your team of vampire hunters, and prepare for battle. Every moment, your life is at risk. Use your courage and wisdom to survive such perils as wolf encounters and mysterious strangers.Adapted by award-winning author Ryan Jacobson, Can You Survive Dracula? turns the classic horror novel by Bram Stoker into a Choose Your Path book for kids. The survival story puts readers in control of the action. Do you have what it takes to defeat the deadly villain? Or will the Count’s unimaginable power lead to your doom? Step into this adventure, and choose your path. But choose wisely, or else!Interactive books for kids are more popular than ever. Create your own adventure with the Interactive Classic Literature book series for boys and girls. You’re the main character. You make the choices. Can you survive?

Genres: Classics, Horror, Fiction

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Lisa Cindrich]

Made for some fun bedtime reading. (Strangely, my daughter wasn't scared to go to sleep even after we'd steered our Jonathan Harker into death by vampire, knife, wolf pack, etc. I was really surprised.) The kiddo's verdict: "I love this thing!"

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine:
You are Jonathan Harker and you have been summoned to an ancient castle in Transylvania.
This is only the beginning.
Through a series of choices, you must find a way to defeat the infamous vampire, Count Dracula.
Can you survive?

For someone who has read the classic by Stoker, I was very pleasantly pleased with this middle grade/upper Elementary take on this story. There are a lot of things that happen in the original book which would either offend or be off putting to some more conservative views. Ryan Jacobson does a great job of staying fairly close to the text of the original, while putting his own spin on "what happens if the reader does x". Admittedly, the first time I read/played the book, I died, and not at the hands of any vampire, oops.
With that said, I'll admit, Jacobson does a great job of making the reader think long and hard about what options they will choose. It definitely isn't as easy as you think it will be, even if you've read the original source material.
All in all, a fun read, I'd recommend to upper elementary, middle school, teen and adult readers, and anyone who likes escape rooms, haunted houses, horror and/or appreciates classic literature.

[B.J. Burgess · Rating 5 out of 5]

This 152-page middle-grade novel retells Bram Stoker's classic vampire story in a kid-friendly manner. Transylvania, Strange Happenings, Dracula's Lair, Stranger and Friends, Carfax, Mina's Misery, and Return to the Castle are the seven chapters in the book, but getting from the start to the last will be difficult. The reader will come across various "What Will You Choose To Do?" options, where you will be able to decide the fate of the protagonist, Jonathan Harker. You choose possibilities for the character, but if you make the wrong decision, you'll get the awful "The End. Try Again." message and have to repeat the story and choose a new path, perhaps leading to a final encounter with Count Dracula.

There are directions for the stem activity "Build a Castle Wall," using uncooked spaghetti, marshmallows, toothpicks, and straws, which are available at the back of the book. Kids, please remember to have an adult monitor you while working on this project.

Overall, Can You Survive Dracula? is an exciting adventure tale that will have kids literally flipping the pages to find out how it ends.╌★★★★★

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I used to love these type of books as a child, and while this one was definitely fun, it is less interesting when there is really only one right answer. My favorite types of choose-your-own adventures are where you can actually choose your own adventures. With this one, you choose the wrong answer and you're dead. No story. So there's really only one correct storyline, and that was disappointing.

Saying that, being a massive fan of the original classic Dracula, it simplifies the story and turns it into a second person narrative (you do this, you do that) and I enjoyed taking a step into Harker's shoes. But still, I was hoping for a little more variety in endings.

[Jenn Marshall · Rating 5 out of 5]

These books have been a huge hit with my students. I read through all of the options and there are a lot of fun paths to take. The Dracula parts are easy to digest. While it is not identical to the classic, it has the same feel to it. It also makes it more fun if you have already read Dracula. I died so many times! I highly recommend this for middle school kids or older.

[Elentarri · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entertaining variation on a favourite classic. This is a very nicely written Choose Your Own Adventure/Path adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula novel, which closely follows (more or less) the original story. There are many bad endings and only one successful path to the end of the novel. A fun read.

[Delanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tried twice: died twice.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such a clever way to do a “choose your own adventure” book!

[em sky-walker · Rating 3 out of 5]

No option to save 🤠? Boo!

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only really survived since I've already read Dracula. I absolutely would've made the wrong decisions for myself

[Jenny (jenjenreviews) · Rating 4 out of 5]

With Can You Survive Dracula? the readers are placed into the shoes of Jonathan Harker and asked to make several choices about what they should do to escape from—and ultimately kill—Dracula. The book is a basically a middle-grade friendly version of Bram Stoker’s novel in that it takes the reader through all the main events that occur in the original story. Because the book is shorter and more child-oriented, it does skip over many details, including the background stories of the secondary characters. Having read Dracula before, I wasn’t at all bothered by this and I definitely understand why the author chose to simplify the tale for a younger audience.

I was in high school when I read Dracula, so the specifics of the book are very hazy for me at this point of my life. This adaptation provided a fun and interactive way for me to revisit the classic novel and stirred up a lot of memories that I had previously thought were lost. The only way to successfully survive and kill Dracula is for the “player” to choose the paths that directly align with the original novel. As a result, there were several times where I was presented with a choice and had to really stop and recall what I remembered from reading Dracula over 10 years ago. I’m not ashamed to admit that I died around 5 times before I finally got to the end. I saw a few reviews saying that they wished the book would have offered more than one ending (which it does, but if the ending is anything less than perfect, the book prompts you to try again), but I personally enjoyed the mental challenge of trying to find the perfect combination of actions to succeed.

My only real suggestion for making the reading experience better would be for there to be small text at the top of a page letting the reader know what pages would have lead there. For example, a page might say “from page 91” to indicate that the reader must have just flipped there from page 91. This would allow people to easily backtrack whenever they reached one of the undesirable endings rather than forcing them to frantically flip through all the pages trying to remember where they last were (like I did).

All in all, this was a fun experience for me and I would recommend it to anyone who is either interested in testing their Dracula knowledge, or looking to introduce someone to Dracula in a more interactive and palatable way.

~~~~~~~
Crossposted on my blog.

For a list of warnings, tropes, and representation for this book, check out its page on BookTriggerWarnings.com.

Thank you BooksForward for providing me with a complimentary book in exchange for an honest review.

[ѦѺ™ · Rating 5 out of 5]

remember the Choose Your Own Adventure series published by Bantam Books?  i loved them as a kid and i still try to get my hands on a few when the inner child in me screams for attention.
a few days ago, through NoiseTrade, i discovered Bram's Stoker's Dracula (Can You Survive?) by Ryan Jacobson with illustrations by Elizabeth Hurley. it is one of nine books (so far) in the Can You Survive series published by Lake 7 Creative, LLC and is similar in concept to Bantam's CYOA series. the difference lies in the former's focus - adapting classic literature into an interactive literary reading experience.
 
Bram's Stoker's Dracula has always been one of my top favorite vampire books and Ryan Jacobson's adaptation is an excellent introduction to the classic for readers 9 to 13 years old. 
 
in this adventure, you - the reader take on the role of a kid who adamantly refuses to participate in the family's trip to the local homeless shelter. while waiting inside the minivan, you notice something strange happening inside one of the boxes loaded in the car. you check it out and that is when the fun begins!
 
i enjoyed the author's version and the problems he presents to the reader who is asked to consider possibilities carefully and to act on them. decision-making and survival skills are put to the test. even one's own values are challenged here.
 
ultimately, there are lessons learned along the way that the reader - hopefully - takes with him or her even after the story ends and that, above all, is what i liked most about the whole book.

[Ms. B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Young readers who are curious about Dracula or vampires will enjoy this Choose Your Own Path book. Dracula is a classic and this book makes it accessible to tweens. Plus, it was fun for me as an adult reader to see how well I remembered the original to see if I could make the right decisions the first time!

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like these takes on classics turned into "Choose Your Path" stories and made accessible to middle graders who are not ready for the real thing.

[Nathaniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was ok..........................................................................

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

These Can You Survive books are my childhood lol Memories <3 This one was good.. 3 stars.