Interviews
An Interview with R. A. Montgomery
Where did the idea for interactive fiction like Choose Your Own Adventure come from?
Game theory and behavioral simulation design are the basic root models for interactive literature. Although it's been around a while. The French writer Raymond Queneau wrote a book in the early sixties translated roughly as Story As You Like It. It retold a story 99 ways, essentially allowing a reader to choose. Subsequently, Julio Cortazar, the Argentinean novelist, published a book called Hopscotch that let a reader jump around in the story and essentially decide the ending. So the roots of interactive storytelling were there. I became interested through work designing simulation games for schools, and the Peace Corps. CHOOSE is based on those paradigms. The interactive model has been around for many years in many forms: moot court, economic modeling, military games, business school case study etc. I guess it reached critical mass with CHOOSE. Interaction is a powerful tool for learning. CHOOSE books empower kids.
How can I write to you?
Address letters to R. A. Montgomery PO Box 46 Waitsfield VT 05673. Please include a SASE (Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope) for a reply. Another way to write to me is on the cyoa.com website, where you can reach any of the Choose Your Own Adventure authors; send in a great new idea for a book, game, or for our website; or report an error you find.
Will you autograph a book for me? How about an old copy?
I'd be happy to autograph anything -- from a new book, an old favorite, a football, you name it. Just send it along and include the return packaging and postage. I'll have my black magic marker waiting! Be careful with those old books, though, they're valuable and rare!
What are your favorite books?
The Northwest Passage by Kenneth Roberts, Single Pebble by John Hersey, and War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.
What is your favorite color?
My favorite colors are yellow and orange. The Chooseco offices are painted in every color of the rainbow, to match our colorful books!
What is your favorite food?
Italian food! I was just in Bologna, Italy, for the Children's Book Fair, and I was lucky enough to have some great Italian dinners.
Why did you decide to re-launch the series now?
The books went out of print just as the generation that grew up reading them started to have children of their own. It's a natural. In these trying times, teaching children how to read and how to make choices and decisions is important. Kids are the future of the world.
Why do you think this reading series has been one of the most popular children's series of all time?
Everyone likes to imagine themselves as a hero, solving problems, saving the world or people, taking chances. CHOOSE books make the reader -- the you -- the hero. Making choices that lead to different endings is exciting. The books are not linear. They are game-like.
What made you decide to start writing books for young readers?
When I started to write in the 1970s, I had two young sons. I wanted to provide a wider choice of books for them to read, and stories that would help them develop a love of reading.
Which Choose Your Own Adventure book is your favorite?
That's hard to say. There are so many stories within each book. If I had to choose (bad pun) it would probably be a tie between The Abominable Snowman and Chinese Dragons. I love the Himalayas and love climbing, even if my technical climbing days are over. I have been interested in the myth of the yeti for decades. Meanwhile, Chinese Dragons is set in medieval China, a favorite period of history for me. It's just a great, rollicking read.
These books became very popular among teachers and educators. Was this a surprise to you or one of your original goals?
No it was not a surprise. We tested the books in schools. From a mimeograph, if you know what that was. The books weren't even in print yet. The response was overwhelming. From the outset these interactive CHOOSE books were and are a stealth reading development program. ?And that made it even better as far as I was concerned.
What is new and updated in the editions that you are re-launching to make the books more appealing for today's readers?
We inserted technological advances such as laptops, GPS systems, deep space probes, cell phones, etc. Anthropologists have made new discoveries which necessitated changes to my story Mystery of the Maya. Political realities in Lost Jewels of Nabooti caused us to change the setting from Ivory Coast to Senegal. New undersea robotic explorations gave us more information for Terror on the Titanic. We also cut out a lot of adverbs and adjectives!
You have done a lot of traveling. Are any of the adventures you describe based on real experiences?
Yes, many of them are based on actual experiences, but names have been changed to protect the innocent! There are a variety of my climbing experiences from all over that found their way into the Everest region for The Abominable Snowman. I had some adventures in Zaire while working for Peace Corps that I put into Race Forever. I had a couple of memorable and fairly dicey adventures in Morocco that appear in Lost Jewels of Nabooti.
