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Choose Your Own Adventure: Young Readers #35
The Miss Liberty Caper
A day camp's visit to the Statue of Liberty is enlivened by the escape of a michievous pet flying squirrel, who secretly accompanied the reader on the trip.
52 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 4, 2024
Some Choose Your Own Adventure books feel like an educational pamphlet camouflaged by a hastily constructed fictional narrative, and this is at least partially true of The Miss Liberty Caper. Kids have visited the Statue of Liberty in New York for generations, but you decide to add a twist to your experience: you sneak your pet flying squirrel Charley in, via your backpack. He sleeps in the daytime anyway, and you'll keep him zipped inside so he doesn't get lost. As Heather, the counselor for your day camp field trip, leads your tour through Lady Liberty, you and your friend Sandra peek in the bag to check on Charley...and he scampers off. Can you retrieve the little rodent before Heather finds out you brought him?
Flying squirrels like heights, so maybe he's headed upstairs toward the statue's torch or crown. The torch is off limits to tourists, but a park ranger might go up and search if you ask. Won't you be in trouble, though, if he learns you smuggled an animal in? You could sneak past the ranger and look for Charley yourself, but it's a long, risky climb up a steel ladder to the torch. If you locate Charley en route, he may evade you long enough to cause trouble. Maybe you think you'll find him in Miss Liberty's crown instead, but what if he takes off flying from there, hundreds of feet to the ground? The sight is sure to be spectacular; however, Heather won't be pleased.
Could Charley have gone downstairs instead of up? If you search there, you spot a girl in a red dress with a small gray shape on her shoulder. Is it Charley? The statue is crowded, so getting a close enough look at the girl will be difficult, but when you lose track of her outside and then catch sight of a boat ferry departing Liberty Island, you have to decide if you think she's aboard. Perhaps you'll end up searching for Charley at the museum in the statue's pedestal and have an encounter that feels like time travel, or go up to the balcony and see if your flying friend is there. Will you and Charley ever have your reunion, and can you make it happen without getting in big trouble?
Much of The Miss Liberty Caper reads as though a ham-fisted academic tour guide were being paid to lecture you without letting on that the experience is supposed to be educational. The lack of subtlety is almost amusing. There are moments of light suspense as you chase Charley through the monument, and these are improved a great deal by Alex Bloch's illustrations. The ones on pages five, twelve, twenty, and twenty-five exude a vertigo vibe worthy of Alfred Hitchcock. I'm not sold on how Mr. Bloch draws people or faces, but he has talent for rendering a scene. I'll rate The Miss Liberty Caper one and a half stars and would have done the full two if the "education tour" element were less in-your-face, but this isn't a bad book for the Bantam Skylark series.
Flying squirrels like heights, so maybe he's headed upstairs toward the statue's torch or crown. The torch is off limits to tourists, but a park ranger might go up and search if you ask. Won't you be in trouble, though, if he learns you smuggled an animal in? You could sneak past the ranger and look for Charley yourself, but it's a long, risky climb up a steel ladder to the torch. If you locate Charley en route, he may evade you long enough to cause trouble. Maybe you think you'll find him in Miss Liberty's crown instead, but what if he takes off flying from there, hundreds of feet to the ground? The sight is sure to be spectacular; however, Heather won't be pleased.
Could Charley have gone downstairs instead of up? If you search there, you spot a girl in a red dress with a small gray shape on her shoulder. Is it Charley? The statue is crowded, so getting a close enough look at the girl will be difficult, but when you lose track of her outside and then catch sight of a boat ferry departing Liberty Island, you have to decide if you think she's aboard. Perhaps you'll end up searching for Charley at the museum in the statue's pedestal and have an encounter that feels like time travel, or go up to the balcony and see if your flying friend is there. Will you and Charley ever have your reunion, and can you make it happen without getting in big trouble?
Much of The Miss Liberty Caper reads as though a ham-fisted academic tour guide were being paid to lecture you without letting on that the experience is supposed to be educational. The lack of subtlety is almost amusing. There are moments of light suspense as you chase Charley through the monument, and these are improved a great deal by Alex Bloch's illustrations. The ones on pages five, twelve, twenty, and twenty-five exude a vertigo vibe worthy of Alfred Hitchcock. I'm not sold on how Mr. Bloch draws people or faces, but he has talent for rendering a scene. I'll rate The Miss Liberty Caper one and a half stars and would have done the full two if the "education tour" element were less in-your-face, but this isn't a bad book for the Bantam Skylark series.
June 19, 2012
I read this book when I was in elementary school, and the thing I most remember about it is the flying squirrel that plays a big part. While on a school field trip, you are being pursued and have to find a way to escape, and there are many places in the statue of liberty to hide, but not all of them are good ones.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews