The First Olympics

Choose Your Own Adventure #77

by Ben M. Baglio

Readers are transported through time to the very first Olympic games and must decide whether to compete as a wrestler or to enter the chariot race

Genres: Choose Your Own Adventure, Childrens, Gamebooks, Fiction, Historical Fiction

116 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1988

About the author

Ben M. Baglio created the brief for two series of children's books - Dolphin Diaries and Animal Ark. Dolphin Diaries features a girl and her family from Florida, who travel around the world as marine biologists and study dolphins. Animal Ark features two children who work together to help animals and solve animal-related mysteries. The books were written by commissioned writers in the UK under Baglio's instruction using the pseudonym Lucy Daniels. Each ghostwriter is named with a 'Special Thanks' on the copyright page.

Using his real name he also wrote the book series The Pet Finders Club, featuring a group of three children who search for peoples lost pets.

Reviews

[Weathervane · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing is decent enough, but the plot threads leave much to be desired. Often, making the sensible choice led to untimely death, which is just unfair to the reader. I did learn a bit about the Olympics, though -- apparently wax pins are a great way to sabatage a chariot. Good to know; my time machine is almost complete.

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of course, I haven't read all the endings, but I have been reading it to classes that I substitute for as a reward and they all love it.

[Nick Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

An apparent stealth sequel to the Cave of Time Choose Your Own Adventure books, or perhaps being thrown through time by stepping into a cave is just the plot device every lazy writer would inevitably come to independently (I guess it's slightly less than cliche than using a genie).

Torn between two modes, The First Olympics is part history, part historical fantasy. There's a lot of legitimate historical detail, with author Ben Baglio clearly intending to teach the young reader something about the Olympics; however, there are also a number of idiosyncratic bits, such as the presence of women and clothing for the athletes, which he states in the preface are not accurate yet includes without explanation. While much of the book tries to root itself in some measure of historical realism, there are random inclusions of gods and magic as well. A slew of the paths in the book crash you into an ending without warning when making what should be perfectly innocuous choices, and an entire half of the story tree ultimately gets you nothing but bad, mediocre, or inconclusive conclusions. The brightest spot is the prose, which is more complex than is typically found in a CYOA book, and the reader will run into very few sections of text that don't span the majority of a page.

[Erythor Silvertip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty clever. Internally consistent. Gave a disclaimer at the beginning clearly stating the fictional conceit that 1. there were women allowed at the ancient Olympics and 2. the athletes are wearing clothing! Very few good endings but the paths to get there were (mostly) reasonable.

[Becky · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fun book to read during the current Olympic Games c:

[Josiah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ben M. Baglio is a good writer. The First Olympics, his debut book, measures up well with later popular material he published.

Mr. Baglio borrows fellow Choose Your Own Adventure author Edward Packard's most famous plot device—the Cave of Time—to enable your trip to the Olympiad of Ancient Greece. Suddenly transported thousands of years back in time to mingle with the ancients, you have little choice but to partake in the festivities surrounding the Olympic Games that are about to start.

This book has a solid assortment of narrative paths to choose from. If you like sports, you can face off in wrestling against other athletic young stars. Another storyline leads you into the heart of an illegal plot to help a man get back his kidnapped daughter, though you might have to cheat in order to win the day. You always have the option of pressing hard to get back to your own time or deciding to stay in the Old World for a while and see what it was like back then.

The First Olympics is an engaging story, and the writing flows with surprisingly lovely description at times. For a good gamebook to read while watching Olympic competition, this one is tough to beat, though The Gold Medal Secret by Doug Wilhelm may be even better.

[Ebster Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first "Choose your own adventure" I ever read. Probably the best too, because there is really only one storyline and you get to choose your own role in it.

(unlike the other Choose your own adventure stories, where the story changes depending on your choices: for instance, it could be aliens or ghosts depending on whether you go down to the basement or up to the attic. Stupid.)

EDIT4-10-14: No other "Choose Your Own Adventure" story I've read so far have met the level of detail as this one. :-(

[Whitney · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book made me think I libed in greece and was in the olympics. You can't read "choose your own adventure books" from page to page you get to decide what you want to do and turn pages all over the book!!