Gunfire at Gettysburg

Choose Your Own Adventure #151

by Doug Wilhelm, Thomas LaPadula (Illustrator)

You and your friends have longed to see action  firsthand in what they're calling the War of  Secession. But apart from your make-believe battles,  you've never even laid eyes on a real rebel soldier.  Until now. Now, as the world outside explodes  with cannon fire and the cries of the wounded, you  find yourself crouched in terror in an abandoned  farm. As the clamor dies down you muster your  courage to peek outside. "Please put your hands  up," says a genteel Southern voice. Shaking  and suddenly cold you raise your hands and turn  around slowly. It is a confederate officer.  Reckoning you ought to know the local terrain, he offers  to take you to his commanding officer, the  legendary General Robert E. Lee. He says he won't shoot  you if you run, but you wonder. You're being  offered the chance to play a pivotal role in history.  But should you help the general whose army is  overrunning your town? If You agree  to meet the revered General, turn to page 25.  If you decide to make a break for  Gettysburg and check on your  family's safety, turn to page 10. Think very carefully  before you decide. Tens of thousands of lives are at stake  --including your own! What happens next in the story?  It all  depends on the choices YOU make. How does the story  end? Only YOU can find out! And the best part is  that you can keep reading and rereading until  you've had not one but MANY incredibly daring  experiences!

Genres: Gamebooks, Choose Your Own Adventure

128 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1994

About the author

Doug Wilhelm is the author of 17 books for young readers, including Street of Storytellers, a multi-award winning novel for YA and adult readers:

• Gold medal, YA fiction, 2020 Independent Press Awards
• Silver medal, teen fiction, 2020 Benjamin Franklin Awards
• Winner, young adult books, 2019 Independent Publishers of New England Book Awards
• Kirkus Reviews Indie Editors Choice

Doug's previous books include The Revealers, a novel about bullying that has been the focus of reading-and-discussion projects in over 1,000 U.S. middle schools, and True Shoes, the Revealers sequel on cyberbullying. Doug began writing for young people with the legendary Choose Your Own Adventure series, for which he has written 10 books. When he visits schools to talk about his books, kids notice that he is six feet ten inches tall!

http://www.dougwilhelm.com/
http://us.macmillan.com/author/dougwi...

Reviews

[Nathan Albright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once upon a time I was very fond of reading choose your own adventure novels [1], although I do not remember ever reading this one.  I requested this book from the library, despite it being for a considerably younger audience, mainly because it serves as a thoughtful comparison to an adult choose your own adventure novel I am reading alongside this one as one of my occasional synoptical reading plans.  Although this book is (obviously) a work of fiction, it is a work of considerable nuance as it places the reader in some ethical dilemmas and tailors the writing in large part to the decisions that are made by the reader.  As a result, this novel appears different to the reader depending on the worldview in which they make their choices, and also rewards bravery and punishes cowardice in very complex ways that encourage the reader to think about themselves as part of history.  All of this is to say that I found this novel surprisingly advanced given the fact that it is written to preteen boys, not exactly the audience where writers tend to provide thoughtful nuance as a general rule.

Like most choose your own adventure novels, this relatively short book of just over 100 pages is not to be read from beginning to end, as it would be nearly entirely incomprehensible in that fashion.  Rather, the book begins with a setup where the reader is placed in the position of a preteen boy growing up near the small town of Gettysburg during the Civil War and naturally curious to see the gunfire only to get caught up in the reality of war as opposed to romantic play warfare.  Through the narrative the author has to choose what matters the most to them, and whether it is worthwhile for them to risk their own well-being in the face of rebel soldiers to help prevent the kidnapping of free blacks into slavery, or whether a desire to protect the well-being of one's side (the Union) would justify omitting details that would be helpful to General Lee in his planning of his attacks on the second day.  And so it goes.  The endings of the story vary widely as well, as in some of the endings one is shot dead, in others one witnesses wounded soldiers of both sides convalescing in peace, helping a Confederate deserter who is about the age of the protagonist, or listening to the Gettysburg Address with the free black one has helped save from Confederate kidnappers.

And that is the real achievement, I think, that this book offers.  Many readers going into this book, just like many young people growing up in the Civil War or afterward, have had a romantic view of the rebels and their behavior in the Civil War.  Yet this book both subtly and persistently undercuts the romance of warfare in general and the romance of supporting the Confederates in particular by showing how the rebels conscripted children to fight on the side of kidnapping, slaveowning oppressors.  I personally think this is a masterful novel, in that it shows children playing at war at its beginning with the protagonist always picking the side of Johnny Reb and ends with the reader likely somewhat in the process of being disillusioned about the reality of war and its failure to match up with the play version of it.  While admittedly I may be a more sophisticated reader of this book than the average one, this book serves a valuable purpose in giving the reader at least the imagination of the gap between warfare as juvenile play and warfare as a life and death matter.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...

[Brandon Nichols · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's always fun for me to trace the source of an idea. In this case, there's no way this would have been written without the TV epic Gettysburg. Having said that, it's not bad for what it is.

Yes, it's a highly romanticized view of our nation's most horrible conflict. The characters are mostly cardboard and the endings are so rose-colored that you can't tell grey from blue, but it's still fun to put yourself in the middle of the action.

Unlike some other CYOA books, your decisions have a verifiable impact on the plot (sometimes). The setting is epic in scope and you can define success or failure by more than just surviving. There's not necessarily a right way to play it, which isn't true of many CYOA books (looking at you Power Dome).

Also, the book forces you to turn to the far side of the book at the end of each page. It would really have been fine to string together a narrative from page to page. That's just annoying.

Anyways, not bad for what it is.

[Josiah · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is really above-average historical fiction for the Choose Your Own Adventure series. Doug Wilhelm has concocted an imaginative, sensitive story about the Civil War that should grip the attention of readers quite well. The narrative is impressively evocative, truly bringing the sights and sounds of the war between the states into sharp, clear focus. I would proudly recommend this story.

[Chewie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Book.