The Forbidden Castle (Choose Your Own Adventure, #14) by Edward Packard

The Forbidden Castle (Choose Your Own Adventure, #14) Reviews

• 
  Peregrine 12

  Dude, I read this when I was eleven years old - stole/borrowed a copy from a boy who'd checked it out from the school library. (I returned it to him, of course.) Do kids still read these things today? This was one of the formative pieces in my present-day state of bibliophilia. Yay, books! Yay, kids! Yay, books for kids!
• 
  Shelley

  I have such good memories of going to my local library and checking out book after book in the fun series. I read so many that I could never remember them all. These are great for 8-12 year olds. Usually fantasy, the stories break at certain points allowing the reader to choose what a character says or does next. Once a choice is made the reader turns to the corresponding page to face the consequence. Sometimes the story abrubtly ends. The book can be read multiple times with a different story each time. It's good for kids because it teaches how choices create consequences. It's good for parents because they can see their child read the same book several times and really get their money's worth.
• 
  Josiah

  This just might be the most difficult book of all in the Choose Your Own Adventure series in which to arrive at a good end. Dozens of pitfalls await the careless decision maker throughout the story, and only one that makes near-perfect choices (while retaining some good fortune!) has a chance of making it through to the end. We tried this one quite a few times before finally reaching the one and only ending that is completely successful. This is an excellent adventure story; one of Edward Packard's best, and an extraordinarily successful sequel to The Cave of Time.
• 
  Andrea

  These books were such a wonderful and engaging idea for a kid- I loved reading them!
• 
  Sheila Read

  I have read so many of these books I can't remember all of them.
• 
  Alex

  Me gustaría dejar de morir.
• 
  Eduardo Boris Muñiz

  Este es un libro que leí gracias al PopSugar Reading Challenge que estoy haciendo este año. Una de las categorías pide leer un libro de elige tu propia aventura, y este fue el que salió seleccionado. Si no fuera por el Challenge dudo seriamente que hubiera leído este libro, es un tipo de libros que pertenecen más a mi infancia que a esta etapa de mi vida.
  Este tipo de libros me volvían loco cuando era niño, el tema es que eran libros caros y era un lujo tener un par. Para los que no conocen de que van son libros en que cada lector toma la decisión de como sigue la historia, dependiendo de la opción que elijan es la página que deben leer a continuación. Usualmente tienen más de 25 finales posibles y casi siempre el 99% de los finales eran bastante malvados (siempre involucraban muertes bastante ingeniosas o graciosas), la gracia era sacar todos los finales o por lo menos llegar a los pocos buenos.
  En este libro todo gira entorno a un castillo prohibido, un niño es transportado por razones desconocidas a la edad media y deberá sobrevivir mientras intenta volver a su tiempo. En medio de sus aventuras descubre la existencia de él castillo prohibido y deberá decidir si busca el regreso a casa o el castillo.
  Es difícil evaluar este tipo de libros desde la adultez porque son libros de niños, entonces lo importante no es tanto la coherencia de la historia sino que sea entretenido, si lo vemos desde este punto de vista cumple la función y por un rato te engancha con las diferentes opciones y finales.
  Si creo que es de los peores en lo que respecta a finales e historia que he leído, la historia en sí no tiene mucho sentido y no engancha ni genera empatia el personaje principal.
  De nuevo, es un libro para niños, y con ese fin es más que correcto, le permite a los niños agarrar el gusto de la lectura e indagar en la curiosidad y las ganas de saber más.
• 
  Remo

  La serie de Elige tu propia aventura es, literalmente, un clásico de nuestra infancia. He releído algunos, años después, y me parecen un poco cortos de miras, limitados en las posibilidades, pero cuando tenía 10 años cada uno de ellos era una maravilla lista para ser explorada hasta que hubiera dado todo lo que tenía dentro.
  Al final siempre sabías que ibas a recorrer todos y cada uno de los caminos posibles. La emoción estaba, por tanto, en ganar y pasarte la historia al primer intento. Si no podías, pues nada, seguro que en el intento 18 acababas encontrando el camino. A veces los autores iban "a pillar", poniéndote los resultados buenos detrás de decisiones que eran claramente anómalas.
  Recuerdo haber aprendido tanto palabras como hechos y datos en estos libros. No nadar contra la corriente cuando quieres llegar a tierra, dónde colocarse cuando un avión va a despegar, un montón de cosas interesantes y un montón de historias vividas, decenas por cada libro, que convirtieron a las serie en una colección fractal, donde cada vez podías elegir un libro nuevo entre los que ya tenías.
  Llegué hasta el tomo 54 y dejé de tener interés por la serie, pero la serie siguió hasta superar los 180 títulos. Tal vez mis hijos quieran seguir el camino que yo empecé. Si quieres que lo sigan, pasa a la página 7.
• 
  Matt Littrell

  I wanted to see if the happy memories with these books were all nostalgic, and thankfully they aren't. This wasn't expertly written or gripping, but it was a very fun little read.
• 
  Mark Austin

  Ah, Choose Your Own Adventure, that paper bridge between that 5th grade fantasy map (see my Hobbit review) and my life-changing discovery of Dungeons & Dragons in the 7th grade.
  
  Some of them were great, some punishing, some arbitrary, but they revealed to me for the first time that I could make choices and that they had immediate effect the course on my (fictional) reality. For a kid whose home life felt largely hopeless and inescapable, the empowerment of making my own way by the power of my own choices and facing consequences traceable directly to my decisions - wow!
  
  While day-to-day reality seemed to deal out arbitrary, unpredictable punishments regardless of my actions, here was a place where I could experiment and learn and grow in safety and if I was punished there was always a why.
• 
  Chrissie

  Enjoyable medieval-based volume in the tried-and-true,
  Choose Your Own Adventure series. Reading these with my two boys is so fun for us—if there is a conflicting opinion in the matter regarding to which page to turn, we flip a coin and all is well. Usually the reason for the argument is that one of them believes the page-turn chosen by the other is going to result in the inevitable and swiftly delivered death. That death, of course, dealt by the harsh, bold words:
  
  THE END.
  
  In various readings, we managed to die, to simply survive out our book character's life without reaching our goal, and then ... we finally managed to locate the titular forbidden castle, survive, and return home to the present (which was a time when I was a toddler). The ultimate success.
• 
  Ethan L

  This medieval story is about a young boy who only wants an adventure in his boring life. The boy finds a cave while walking home from school which he went into. After going into the cave he realizes that he is not in the same time because the sun is setting. He tries to find a place to settle when he suddenly runs into what looks like two castle guards. When I was reading this book I got to choose what I wanted to happen, which made the book more interesting.
• 
  'Nathan Burgoine

  I read these when I was nine/ten years old, voraciously devouring them and re-reading them over and over. My grade five teacher saw how much I loved them, and brought a "how-to" book to give to me, and I remember writing one of my own. It was probably terrible. Still, these books were one of my gateway books to reading non-stop for most of my childhood.
• 
  Marts (Thinker)

  So here you go into this time warp and end up in medieval England searching for some treasure, but be careful!
• 
  Marcus

  Loved it!
• 
  Valerie

  I love these books. Most books you read once but you get more use out of these and you have the power to change the story.
• 
  saw

  This made me very busy!!!!
• 
  Dane Barrett

  The Forbidden Castle is another entertaining book from Edward Packard who once again proves that he can write a more cohesive narrative than some other CYOA authors.
  
  This time Packard revisits his original book "The Cave of Time" with our protagonist making the mistake of once again entering the cave only to find themselves stuck in medieval times. After avoiding (or being captured by) authorities because of the way you are dressed (wearing a striped shirt means you must be an evil witch or demon!) you eventually begin a quest to solve a riddle and discover the whereabouts of the Forbidden Castle.
  
  The book actually reminded me of some of the Endless Quest books released by TSR and shows that Edward Packard is pretty good at spinning a tale set in this era of history. I especially enjoyed the portions of the story in which you are teamed up with another character (that you may or may not meet depending which path you follow) for an extended period of time and couldn't help but think with a more in-depth book these two characters would have been fun to see develop their friendship a bit more.
  
  Another decent read from Edward Packard, who was definitely one of the better early CYOA authors.
  
  Oh, and no extra terrestrial encounters either. I felt compelled to at least mention it. :)
• 
  Nate

  Surprisingly awesome! Plus, it’s a surprise sequel to the first book in the series!
• 
  Jennifer Abella

  This one lasted me a while, I made such good decisions.
• 
  Monica

  PARECE QUE PACKARD, AL ESCRIBIR ‘ LA CUEVA DEL TIEMPO’, LE QUEDÓ UNA ESPINITA CLAVADA Y QUERÍA VOLVER AL MEDIEVO. Eso es lo que creo deducir al haber leído ‘El castillo prohibido’; una segunda parte de la anterior. Incluso eres el mismo protagonista que, nuevamente, se adentra en la cueva y mediante un accidente queda atrapado en la época de caballeros, espadas, reinos por conquistar y confabulaciones.
  Visto desde ésa perspectiva se puede antojar hasta divertido y descriptivo, pero nada más alejado de la realidad. Su lectura resulta aceptable, pero innecesaria (tratándose de una segunda parte). Es una lástima, porqué una de las principales virtudes del autor es lograr enganchar a sus lectores más jóvenes, con aventuras que atrapan y son variadas, además de variopintas. Para colmo de males, el misterio del Castillo prohibido, si bien es diferente a lo que pueda pensar el lector (e inusual en la literatura en general), es insulso, carente de emoción y peligro.
  
  EN RESUMEN, UNA ENTREGA ACEPTABLE, PERO DEMASIADO SOSA Y CON POCO CONTENIDO DE AVENTURAS PARA TRATARSE DE ÉSTE ESCRITOR. MEJOR LEERSE ‘ LA CUEVA DEL TIEMPO’.
  PARA IMPRESCINDIBLES DE PARCKARD O AQUELLOS QUE NO HAYAN LEÍDO NADA DE LA SERIE.
  
• 
  Mikana

  I loved the choose your-own-adventure books during my early years, and believe these are a great set of books for those who are new to reading their own books.
• 
  Federico DN

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