18 Best Choose Your Own Adventure Books
Choose Your Own Adventure Books inspired the video game generation to put down the controller and read. Kids fell in love with the opportunity to have a choice in how the story progressed. You kids can spark that same sense of curiosity with these 18 Best Choose Your Own Adventure Books.
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What Are Choose Your Own Adventure Books?
If you grew up in the 80s and 90s, you likely ordered more than your fair share of Choose Your Own Adventure Books from the monthly book order sent home by your teacher. These exciting books allowed the reader to make a choice that would change the outcome of the story. Read it more than once, make a different choice and it was like reading a whole new story. You and a friend could read the same book and experience a different ending. These creative books inspired a love of reading in kids who may not have otherwise been so inspired.
Our Favorite CYOA Books
There are so many different books out there – with books for younger kids, graphic novels with different adventures, and the original books from the Choose Your Own Adventure series – but these books here are our favorite ones!
Check them out, but be sure to scroll down for various other themed CYOA books that you can’t miss.
This was the first official Choose Your Own Adventure book that was written in 1979. While it may be a little dated, it's worth reading the first book in the original series! With 39 possible endings, true CYOA lovers will enjoy this classic story.
When valuable jewels are stolen from a museum in Paris, what will you do to get them back? With 38 possible outcomes, if you make the wrong choice the first time, you can always hope to make the right choice the next time!
Books like this are a great way to get younger children into these books from a young age! Perfect for 6-8 year old readers to find the best course of the story, whether they choose to spy on a pirate ghost or brave a haunted museum!
While these aren't part of the official CYOA book series, we love that the American Girl books have a "choose your own ending" type of book for AG lovers to enjoy! Young children can take Kit on a different path through adventures related to her life during the Great Depression.
Be sure to check out more of the American Girl "My Journey" books too!
Star Wars Choose Your Adventure
These Star Wars choose your own adventure books are inspired by George Lucas’ epic space opera. Fans of the movies will love diving into this spin-off that includes all of their favorite characters.
Han and Chewie are on a journey across the galaxy for a simple smuggling job. Climb aboard the Millennium Falcon and help them out when things inevitably go wrong.
Finn, Poe and BB-8 are on an important mission for the resistance. Head across the galaxy with them.
Will you choose to join the rebels over Scarif or fly after the Inquisitor? On Mustafar, do you dare to battle Anakin, or will you join him on the dark side of the Force? You get to be the hero of this book and choose where to go and what to do.
Enter a galaxy far, far away and choose between good and evil. Have the power you do.
Choose Your Own Princess Adventure
Readers who enjoy stories about castles, mermaid and unicorns will love these Princess Choose Your Own Adventure Books.
Head out on an exciting adventure to Princess Island. Practice your curtsy, search for the ghost of Lady Violet Grimm, and compete in the Princess Playoffs.
Princess Rose and Princess Josephine decide to leave their castle, but they can't agree on which way to go. This tabbed picture book lets you choose and is perfect for younger readers.
Cinderella is a classic story, but this time you get to choose the path. Will Cinderella get the prince? You decide!
When the princess drops her favorite toy down the well, a frog promises to retrieve it. If only she can grant his heart's desire. Will the princess get back her toy? You get to choose how the story ends.
Zombie Choose Your Own Adventure
Can you survive or will you be one of the ones to become infected? The apocalypse has arrived and now is the time to pick-a-plot and choose your destiny.
You've woken up in the world of Minecraft as a zombie! All you can do is growl so you will go home or terrorize other players?
Zombies are loose on the street and it only takes one scratch or bite to become infected. How will you escape the stumbling, growling, hungry creatures?
Looking for other middle school book ideas? Check out our favorite middle grade series and books for 6th grade boys! (and girls too)
Goosebumps Choose Your Own Adventure
R. L. Stein is the king of kids and teen horror stories and his Goosebumps series is one of the most beloved series amongst children. But reader beware…in these books you choose your own scare.
Late one night you and your friends visit the old fairgrounds. They're putting up rides and booths for the annual carnival. But this year things look really different. Really odd. Really scary.
You're visiting your Grandmother in her spooky home. It borders a graveyard filled with headstones and they are creeping closer and closer every day. What will happen?
Animal Choose Your Own Adventure
Animal lovers will enjoy reading about all kinds of animals in these fun Power to Choose books.
Your puppy has gone missing and you've got to follow the clues to save the day. Can you scare away the bullies and save the day?
Visit France and fall in love with a French poodle, then shoot up into outer space! All the while with your best friend, Homer the dog, along for the adventure.
You are Buck, the famous sled dog. You must use your strength, your cunning, and your animal instincts to survive such perils as bear attacks, wolf encounters, starvation, and the frigid temperatures of Canada’s Yukon.
You will need all nine lives to navigate the back alleys and dysfunctional family that takes you in. You are a cat!
Choose Your Own Adventure History Books
We’ve been told that we have the power to write our own history. Will your knowledge of history affect your choices as your read this historical choose your own adventure books?
Settlers, including you, are heading west on the Oregon Trail to seek a better life. Will you: Go west with your family as part of a wagon train? Serve as a trail guide for a group of settlers? Everything in this book happened to real people. And YOU CHOOSE what you do next.
Imagine you were an enslaved person in the 1850s, desperate to escape to freedom, or a helper on the railroad, taking great risks so others could escape to freedom. The Underground Railroad lets you choose a path … to freedom or capture and, perhaps, death.
With so many great choices, which book adventure will you choose first?
MEET THE AUTHOR
Amanda
As a mom of 4 kids (and the oldest of 4 kids herself), Amanda has over 30 years of parenting experience. A former special education teacher, Amanda has a Master’s degree in Special Education and a second M. Ed. in Educational Leadership.
When she’s not working, Amanda enjoys DIY projects, exercising, photography, and long walks through Target.
You can find Amanda on all social media at @parentingnestblog and @amandaseghetti
