A review by heatherbermingham
Leviathan by Jason Shiga

4.0

I ordered this a while back, just because a choose your own adventure graphic novel seemed like something kids would like, but I finally picked one up to look at it and realized that it has a couple of other layers. Like most choose your own adventure books, you follow a path and occasionally have to make a choice, but there are a few spots in the story where you run into an empty box where there should be a page number. For example, at one point, you need to charter a boat. The captain tells you that it's a treacherous trip and asks if you even know how many ships have been lost in this particular ocean. And then instead of a box with a page number, there's an empty box and a panel where you respond that you don't know. He tells you, "Well, come back when you know then" and you have go go back through the narrative, find the answer, and make your way back to him. Then the answer you found (always a number) is the next page number and you can continue. But until you find that piece of information, that page - and therefore, the rest of the story - is closed off. It's very neat. It, as well as the layout of pages that are snippets of maps with page numbers representing the different paths you can choose from, reminded me of an old school Zelda game. I mean, to figure this out I was taking notes, drawing maps, and in one spot, even doing math.

I will admit that, as with early Zelda games, I eventually cheated. I'd probably recommend this for upper elementary/middle school kids - you can get stuck in a loop and it is frustrating! And the story itself is pretty thin. But the concept is super fun - I can't even imagine how much work it was for Shiga to get this laid this all out in a way that made sense - and for most kids, I think the experience will be interesting enough.