My library chose a nonfiction location for
Can You Survive the Titanic?: An Interactive Survival Adventure by Allison Lassieur. The book shares lots facts about the ship, the process of the sinking, the types of passengers, and chances of survival. It includes a bibliography, index, glossary, and photographs. It's also one of a
You Choose Books featuring multiple story paths and possible endings, which stretches the nonfiction label for me.
After a short introduction, the reader has the choice to navigate the book as part of the crew as a surgeon's assistant, as a governess of a wealthy family, or a 12 year old boy traveling with his father as a third class passenger. At different points, the book offers choices, for instance whether to help third class or go to the upper deck, until the end of your story. As fiction, it was engaging, interesting, and detailed, with a well-researched historical and emotional accuracy of the experience. The truth certainly wasn't sugar-coated, as many of the storyline endings did not leave the characters alive.
These dire conclusions are where the book gets tricky for me. I know death happens in the genre of "choose your own adventure," but this was more real... because the Titanic itself was real. I'm not sure how I feel about that. The other survival books in the
You Choose Books are more vague - Antarctica, storm chasing, the jungle. The basis on an actual event made me uncomfortable in sort of a voyeuristic way, much less wondering if it was appropriate for younger readers for whom the series is intended. Or in our twenty-four hour news cycle of the latest tragedy, is this the new normal? Thoughts?
For more titles, visit our Nonfiction Monday host,
Supratentorial.
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