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Track Star!
Track Star! by R. A. Montgomery takes YOU - a star student athlete - on an adventure through the pressures of competitive high school athletics. 9-12 year old readers will compete on the varsity track team in hopes of earning a college scholarship, juggling schoolwork, family, friends, and peer pressure along the way.
Choose Your Own Adventure Track Star! is an interactive adventure book in which YOU decide what happens next.
Do you take a vow of silence and start doping to improve your athletic performance? Or do you get the Feds involved? Can you trust your coaches' training advice? Should you quit track and accept a job as a research assistant?
For readers who enjoyed other titles from the Choose Your Own Adventure series, Race Forever by R. A. Montgomery, The Lost Jewels of Nabooti by R. A. Montgomery, and Search for the Mountain Gorillas by Jim Wallace.
Choose Your Own Adventure Track Star! is an interactive adventure book in which YOU decide what happens next.
Do you take a vow of silence and start doping to improve your athletic performance? Or do you get the Feds involved? Can you trust your coaches' training advice? Should you quit track and accept a job as a research assistant?
For readers who enjoyed other titles from the Choose Your Own Adventure series, Race Forever by R. A. Montgomery, The Lost Jewels of Nabooti by R. A. Montgomery, and Search for the Mountain Gorillas by Jim Wallace.
133 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2009
2 people are currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
R.A. Montgomery
156 books122 followersRaymond A. Montgomery (born 1936 in Connecticut) was an author and progenitor of the classic Choose Your Own Adventure interactive children's book series, which ran from 1979 to 2003. Montgomery graduated from Williams College and went to graduate school at Yale University and New York University (NYU). He devoted his life to teaching and education.
In 2004, he co-founded the Chooseco publishing company alongside his wife, fellow author/publisher Shannon Gilligan, with the goal of reviving the CYOA series with new novels and reissued editions of the classics.
He continued to write and publish until his death in 2014.
In 2004, he co-founded the Chooseco publishing company alongside his wife, fellow author/publisher Shannon Gilligan, with the goal of reviving the CYOA series with new novels and reissued editions of the classics.
He continued to write and publish until his death in 2014.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 16, 2022
If I were rating this one strictly on its content, it would be 2 stars. I'm upgrading it to 3 because Montgomery and Chooseco's hearts were in the right place when they created this one. It's like a kid's book mixed with a PSA mixed with a big literary club trying to beat the reader/prospective young athlete over the head with the notion -- don't take steroids or performance enhancing substances.
Setting aside the fact that a kid reading this is probably not interested in these substances in the first place. It was just too obvious how they wanted you to choose on the relatively sporadic chances you got to choose your path. It might have been more convincing if they punched up the reader's story background to suggest just how desperate and little your chance in athletics might be without them to punch up the tension.
Setting aside the fact that a kid reading this is probably not interested in these substances in the first place. It was just too obvious how they wanted you to choose on the relatively sporadic chances you got to choose your path. It might have been more convincing if they punched up the reader's story background to suggest just how desperate and little your chance in athletics might be without them to punch up the tension.
March 23, 2013
Okay, I figured I had a decent chance on this one. Unlike seeking the yeti or getting along with martians, running track is something I've actually DONE. And I didn't die. Not even once. So this should have been a snap.
Well, things were promising at first. More than any of the others, the decisions in this one were easy because the thing reads like a damn anti-drug pamphlet.
You know, this is a weird thought, but sometimes I wonder if anti-drug propaganda is a little ineffective because people always harp on the bad, worst-case stuff. I mean, yeah, steroids are not ultimately good for you. But when you talk about how steroids will hurt your heart and your emotions and yadda yadda, it's really not effective on a 17 year-old kid because those bad things are so far into the future it's like they'll never happen. Plus, they have some positive effects that are immediate. So there you go.
Look, if this thing can shrivel your junk and 17 year-old guys are still doing it, I don't know what to tell you. That's pretty much the best consequence I can think of, so if that doesn't stop them, what possibly could? Unless the legal punishment becomes a direct kick to the gentleman's region, I don't see anything further we can do to convince anyone.
What's really weird about this Choose Your Own Adventure is that I was totally on the righteous path, but as far as I can tell making the decision to continue running track as opposed to taking a paid teaching job (as a high school senior, by the way) resulted in me taking drugs. The part where I took the drugs? No choice! I didn't even get to choose about the drugs. One minute I'm making the decision to not work a boring job teaching dumb youth about whatever, the next I've somehow acquired steroids and injecting myself all to hell, which somehow results in fracturing my own leg.
You know, the best piece of advice came from a magical Hispanic child whose house was not wealthy but filled with warmth and laughter (yeah, I know). He told me that anyone trying to convince you to take drugs doesn't care about you. They just want to make money or look good at their job because you can run fast.
Oh, and BY THE WAY, I guess I must have really sucked at track. Movies have led me to believe that coaches are always trying to convince players to do dumb shit to enhance their performance. Which is a little weird to me because I wouldn't think that an asshole-ish guy who didn't give a damn about anyone would really have much interest in coaching, but whatever.
My main problem is that I think the kids who suck, the ones who would really benefit from drugs, aren't being offered them. That's bullshit. I mean, here we are, talking about how Lance Armstrong may have done some space age shit to shave 1/10th of a second off his times, meanwhile I was working really hard to not get LAPPED in the 2-mile. I mean, if there's a compelling reason to use roids as a high school athlete, let me tell you, avoiding even a sliver of the shame that comes with being that age is a damn good one.
Well, things were promising at first. More than any of the others, the decisions in this one were easy because the thing reads like a damn anti-drug pamphlet.
You know, this is a weird thought, but sometimes I wonder if anti-drug propaganda is a little ineffective because people always harp on the bad, worst-case stuff. I mean, yeah, steroids are not ultimately good for you. But when you talk about how steroids will hurt your heart and your emotions and yadda yadda, it's really not effective on a 17 year-old kid because those bad things are so far into the future it's like they'll never happen. Plus, they have some positive effects that are immediate. So there you go.
Look, if this thing can shrivel your junk and 17 year-old guys are still doing it, I don't know what to tell you. That's pretty much the best consequence I can think of, so if that doesn't stop them, what possibly could? Unless the legal punishment becomes a direct kick to the gentleman's region, I don't see anything further we can do to convince anyone.
What's really weird about this Choose Your Own Adventure is that I was totally on the righteous path, but as far as I can tell making the decision to continue running track as opposed to taking a paid teaching job (as a high school senior, by the way) resulted in me taking drugs. The part where I took the drugs? No choice! I didn't even get to choose about the drugs. One minute I'm making the decision to not work a boring job teaching dumb youth about whatever, the next I've somehow acquired steroids and injecting myself all to hell, which somehow results in fracturing my own leg.
You know, the best piece of advice came from a magical Hispanic child whose house was not wealthy but filled with warmth and laughter (yeah, I know). He told me that anyone trying to convince you to take drugs doesn't care about you. They just want to make money or look good at their job because you can run fast.
Oh, and BY THE WAY, I guess I must have really sucked at track. Movies have led me to believe that coaches are always trying to convince players to do dumb shit to enhance their performance. Which is a little weird to me because I wouldn't think that an asshole-ish guy who didn't give a damn about anyone would really have much interest in coaching, but whatever.
My main problem is that I think the kids who suck, the ones who would really benefit from drugs, aren't being offered them. That's bullshit. I mean, here we are, talking about how Lance Armstrong may have done some space age shit to shave 1/10th of a second off his times, meanwhile I was working really hard to not get LAPPED in the 2-mile. I mean, if there's a compelling reason to use roids as a high school athlete, let me tell you, avoiding even a sliver of the shame that comes with being that age is a damn good one.
December 25, 2017
well that was a waste of time
December 7, 2016
I haven't read a Choose Your Own Adventure book since I was in middle school (Neil Patrick Harris' autobiography doesn't count in this instance). I remember them being much better, but then again I wasn't as particular as I am now. Now, I didn't go into this book thinking it was on par with a NY Bestseller, but it was eye-rollingly over the top. The influence from WADA was so strong that it was actually overwhelming. None of the outcomes seemed plausible.
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March 24, 2015I'm really disappointed: I never got to make the informed choice to take drugs like a dirty no good low down doper. I got duped by a coach who offered me "legal" stuff that got me caught and disqualified. Dangit!
This is a disappointing failure. Even went I WANT to live a life of crime, I can't make it happen. I just Clouseau it. How unsatisfying for a budding villain.
This is a disappointing failure. Even went I WANT to live a life of crime, I can't make it happen. I just Clouseau it. How unsatisfying for a budding villain.
February 16, 2012
Good principles in this book, but I think I'm now finding the series boring. I might get back into it later, but for now, I'm going to find a book with actual plot. :P
June 2, 2012
I really like choose your own adventures books.this one was fine.:(
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews