Seaside Mystery

Choose Your Own Adventure #67

by Ann Hodgman, Judith Mitchell (Illustrator)

Do you dare learn the secret of the lost mermaid?

You're spending the summer at a seaside boardinghouse. One moonlit night you hear someone crying on the beach. You peek out your window—and see a mermaid named Tana. You'd like to help her, but she's in a terrible mood. "I don't know where the rest of the mermaids are," she snaps. "I've been looking for two days, but I can't find any of them. And if you want to hear any more, you'll have to follow me underwater!"

If you go underwater with Tana, turn to page 36. If you lose your temper and go back to bed, turn to page 4. Whichever you choose, watch out! You've already been seen with Tana, and the two of you face danger. You could wind up as an aquarium exhibit, spin to your death in a whirlpool, or be boiled alive by a sea witch. Or you could discover an island paradise and live there happily ever after!

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: Choose Your Own Adventure, Gamebooks

115 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1987

About the author

Ann Hodgman (born 1956) is an American author of more than forty children's books as well as several cookbooks and humor books and many magazine articles.

Ann was raised in Rochester, New York and graduated from Harvard College, where she was a staff member on the Harvard Lampoon and the Harvard Advocate. She was the food columnist for the magazines Spy and Eating Well. Her essay "No Wonder They Call Me a Bitch," about taste-testing various dog foods, was included in "Best American Essays." Hodgman is also known for her three cookbooks, Beat This!, Beat That! and One Bite Won't Kill You. She is the author of the 6-book vampire series My Babysitter is a Vampire and the nonfiction memoir "The House of a Million Pets."

Hodgman is married to author David Owen, a staff writer for The New Yorker, and they have two children, Laura and John.

Reviews

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tus padres han marchado el agosto fuera, y te han dejado en un hotel familiar cerca de una acogedora bahía. Allí la señora Climp (algo adusta) es la encargada de vigilarte, por lo que tu estancia discurre entre el aburrimiento y la tensión; hasta que una noche te despierta un sollozo. En la playa descubres a una sirena extraviada y huraña, que te solicita auxilio para encontrar al resto de su grupo.
‘La sirena perdida’ es una obra del gran R. A Montgomerry bajo seudónimo, que parte con un argumento algo vacuo y poco prometedor de base. Sin embargo, el autor logra crear una aura tensa y opresora de inicio, engarzada con una introducción descriptiva perfecta del marco dónde transcurrirá el desarrollo, así como sus personajes a nivel psicológico de un plumazo.
Las historias tienen dos vías principales a seguir. Su primera opción de deriva es la vertiente fantasiosa y aventurera, y comprende una longitud medio - larga, en dónde acompañaremos a la sirena en su búsqueda, con mayor o menor fortuna. Éstas se caracterizan por ser historias con alusión al folclore y los mitos (obvio, por otra parte, ya que el escritor que suele poner información temática en todas sus obras), y una o dos aventuras bajo el mar o a alrededor de éste por cada elección que escojas. No contiene finales excesivamente negativos, si bien con algún que otro naufragio y accidente. Por contra, su segunda opción se decanta por la vía detectivesca y de búsqueda vecinal y / bibliográfica para auxiliar a la sirena en apuros. Aquí, sus desarrollos son inquietantes, con oscuros personajes en escena, y finales un tanto truculentos; siendo incluso uno de ellos algo explícito y gore para tratarse de un libro de esta serie. En referencia a la longitud, aquí decae un poco y se tornan medio- cortas.
Sin ser una maravilla ni nada destacable dentro de la larga serie, esta obra da algo más de lo que en un principio parece prometer; todo ello debido al buen hacer de Montgomerry. Éste, pese a tener muchos títulos a sus espaldas, realiza una muy aceptable labor y ensalza una historia de por sí, insulsa de base; sacándole jugo extra a su cometido.
No la recomiendo para lectores fieles de la serie, sino a los Neo o más peques; en transición entre “Globo rojo/ azul” y ésta.

[Josiah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why was Seaside Mystery Ann Hodgman's one and only contribution to the Choose Your Own Adventure series? I'm not sure. As I see it, this is a fantastic gamebook, an excellent example of what can be done in the genre when an author plans well and executes the story at a high level. Possibilities abound in the pages of Seaside Mystery, giving the feeling there may be no limit to the adventures to be had. You can get caught up in a battle over the ethics of humane treatment against a sour old lady concerned only with making money and having things her own way; you could be drawn miles beneath the pulsating surface of the ocean blue, led below where even the sun's faintest rays tint the blackness of the deep sea, where ocean life you never dreamed could exist make their homes out of mankind's view and lurk in predatory wait for creatures upon which they can feed. Ann Hodgman presents the mystery and majesty of the deep ocean in eerie, almost haunting tones at times in this book, reminding us how little we know of what lies beneath the tempestuous ocean's waves, and rekindling the longing to explore it that has characterized scientific curiosity for generations. You might even find a most peculiar friend in this story, a friend whose attention can be hard to hold onto, but whose gratitude if you prove to be a genuine companion will shower upon you gifts of the most lasting nature imaginable. Where is Ann Hodgman prepared to lead us as we open Seaside Mystery and give ourselves over to the adventure of a lifetime? Come along and you'll see.

With your parents away on a trip to Europe, You are left to roam the vacant beaches in a place called Clams' Bay, as temporary resident of a small inn populated almost entirely by the elderly. It's not the vacation you'd imagined when your parents said you'd be spending a month at a hotel by the sea. You were looking forward to a lively, exciting atmosphere, but with the stodgy Miss Climp assigned to follow you around and make sure you don't find anything too interesting, you've resigned yourself to just getting through this month until your parents return. Your prospects for late summer take an immediate turn, however, when you hear the faint sound of crying coming from outside your window late one night. Quietly exiting the inn, you trail the sound to its origin, and find a mermaid weeping on the shore. Just like that, a summer in the doldrums becomes an unfathomable adventure of lost families and unscrupulous moneymaking schemes. Can you really ignore the forlorn creature on the beach before you, a hapless mermaid who has lost contact with her family and doesn't know where they could be in all the waterways of the world?

What you decide makes all the difference in this adventure. Unlike some gamebooks, Seaside Mystery isn't made up of primarily cosmetic choices, creating the illusion of controlling the story when the decisions one makes actually have little impact on the direction of the plot. You have a wide variety of ways to help Tana the mermaid rejoin her family, and any one of them may merit a try. You could wind up investigating the shady owner of a rundown aquarium for marine animals, whose star attraction to the exhibit seems to be a big secret he doesn't want you to see. Could uncovering the truth behind this secret exhibit be the key to reuniting Tana with her missing family? Alternatively, if you unintentionally lead the unsavory Miss Climp to find out about Tana and make a play for a piece of the money that would come from empirically proving the existence of mermaids, you may be required to take big chances on Tana's behalf to keep her free of captivity and deny Miss Climp her payday. How much are you willing to risk for Tana? Would you put your life on the line to save your new friend, even if she doesn't always act friendly toward you?

You could end up roaming the tropics or proceeding into steadily icier waters as you head up north in search of Tana's family, uncertain what the future holds for either of you but knowing you're not going to give up on her family now, after all the work you've put into locating them. Everyone needs a family, even flighty, irresponsible creatures who tend to get themselves into a boatload of trouble and can be quite careless about the people they hurt, especially if it's for the sake of entertainment. But if Tana has become your friend, then there isn't anything you wouldn't do to help her, right? And the rewards of success are perhaps as memorable as in any other Choose Your Own Adventure book I've read. Indeed, there are a number of truly touching endings in Seaside Mystery that show the real potential of what gamebooks at their best can offer, and these thoughtful endings are a large part of the reason I enjoyed Seaside Mystery so much.

Besides the cogently written, skillfully plotted story, I have to point out the nice illustrating job done by Judith Mitchell, whose whimsical artistic style I had already become a fan of in the Bantam Skylark Choose Your Own Adventure book, The Great Zopper Toothpaste Treasure. Judith Mitchell brings life to Seaside Mystery as I've rarely see done in any gamebook, invigorating a varied assortment of storylines, none of which could have been easy to represent to their full potential. But her most impressive work is found on page six of the book, accompanying Ann Hodgman's mesmerizing description of the strange and sometimes frightening sea life you run into deep below the ocean's surface. The illustration has almost a spellbinding effect, and I think it's more than just the creatures we can see that causes it (even though there appears to be a gulper eel or two in there!). It's the hovering darkness that protects the creatures we can't see, in the realm where our imagination races unbound and makes us wonder if what's out there beyond the limits of sight could be ten times stranger and scarier than what we do see. The illustration is perfect for the book, and is one of the big reasons I'm rounding my two-and-a-half star rating up to three stars. Ann Hodgman and Judith Mitchell make a great gamebook writing team, and they sure collaborated on something special in this story.

Not all gamebooks are built as logically as Seaside Mystery, and fewer still are as engaging an adventure as this book, taking readers to so many different settings and fleshing out each story branch so well. In my estimation, this is one of the best entries in the Choose Your Own Adventure series, and I only wish Ann Hodgman had written additional books for it. If you're looking for a gamebook experience you'll want to come back to again and again and again, I believe Seaside Mystery may be the book you want.

[tai · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am really surprised more people aren’t talking about what is the CREEPIEST CYOA ending ever, which is in this volume. Maybe one of the creepiest endings I’ve read, period. Without spoiling too much, let’s just say it doesn’t end well well for our hero, who ends up loosing the lower half of her body and having it replaced by something..umm…fishier.
The book was traumatizing to my 8 YO self. Maybe this is where it all started to go south for me. So of course, now I love it. Four solid childhood trauma stars. 🤣

[Allison Borst]

I have extensive memories of trying desperately to find a happy ending among the morbid options of "you lose your magic necklace and drown, surrounded by giggling mermaids!" and "Your mermaid friend is captured and held in an aquarium where she dies" and "a fisherman catches your mermaid friend and kills her in order to stuff her as a trophy."

SERIOUSLY. THESE BOOKS ARE MORBID AS HELL.

[Dolly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Our oldest has been bringing home various You Choose books from her elementary school library. And now at our local library we've discovered some of the books from the original Choose Your Own Adventure series that I read when I was a child. I remember loving books like this in my childhood and I am excited that our girls are discovering them as well.

This book focuses on an undersea adventure with a mermaid. Many of the paths took us on a fantastic journey that we could hardly imagine, but the stories were dramatic and exciting.

Overall, these are entertaining, though sometimes violent stories. I tend to prefer the "You Choose" series because they have an educational and historical context, but the books in this series are interesting, too. We enjoyed reading this book together.

[Shannon]

This was my favorite of the Choose Your Own Adventure books that I got to read... there are so many of them, though, so I definitely didn't get to read anywhere near all of them!

[Remo · Rating 4 out of 5]

La serie de Elige tu propia aventura es, literalmente, un clásico de nuestra infancia. He releído algunos, años después, y me parecen un poco cortos de miras, limitados en las posibilidades, pero cuando tenía 10 años cada uno de ellos era una maravilla lista para ser explorada hasta que hubiera dado todo lo que tenía dentro.
Al final siempre sabías que ibas a recorrer todos y cada uno de los caminos posibles. La emoción estaba, por tanto, en ganar y pasarte la historia al primer intento. Si no podías, pues nada, seguro que en el intento 18 acababas encontrando el camino. A veces los autores iban "a pillar", poniéndote los resultados buenos detrás de decisiones que eran claramente anómalas.
Recuerdo haber aprendido tanto palabras como hechos y datos en estos libros. No nadar contra la corriente cuando quieres llegar a tierra, dónde colocarse cuando un avión va a despegar, un montón de cosas interesantes y un montón de historias vividas, decenas por cada libro, que convirtieron a las serie en una colección fractal, donde cada vez podías elegir un libro nuevo entre los que ya tenías.
Llegué hasta el tomo 54 y dejé de tener interés por la serie, pero la serie siguió hasta superar los 180 títulos. Tal vez mis hijos quieran seguir el camino que yo empecé. Si quieres que lo sigan, pasa a la página 7.

[Marena · Rating 3 out of 5]

My 8 year old and I buddy read these. Each of us has our own adventure and then compare our stories at the end. Somehow we both managed to get a happy ending on both our stories the first time through.

[Edith Campo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Un libro con personajes poco simpáticos en el que parece que la autora se cansaba de escribir sus propias historias, que terminan sin más, de formas extrañas y, muchas veces truculentas. El "Elige tu propia aventura" más raro que he leído.