Forest of Fear #54

An exciting book that can be about Indians, ghosts or thieves...you choose. You've gone hunting for the spirit tree. Will you find it or will you become one of the spirits in it? This book is packed with action and mystery.

From the cover: You're spending the summer with your uncle in Maine. He's writing a book about an old Indian legend - the story of a sacred pine tree whose branches were said to be inhabited by spirits. You decide to hunt for the Spirit Tree yourself - but when you find it you fall asleep under its branches. You wake up surrounded by six shadowy forms. They order you to make a terrifying choice: you must drink a deadly herb brew or walk across burning coals. An Indian legend is coming true - and somehow you've been trapped in it. 17 possible endings.

When I saw the title, "Forest of Fear," I wasn't sure if maybe I was going to be reading some corny book by some author I didn't recognize in the Choose Your Own series. Sometimes, it's the authors who have not written as many books in the series who come up with some of the greatest material, though Packard, the inventor of the Choose Your Own series and probably the entire genre, has some well written ones in his huge lot of ones that he has written such as Fright Night. Forest of Fear turns out to be a superbly written book! I wasn't expecting to be entranced constantly by the possibilities. Of course, there are possibilities which aren't considered because the book is limited to 116 pages and you could go on forever trying to constantly make up different possibilities, such as if you meet the store owner, they do not leave you with the option to take her money from her, or they offer possibilities you might not think of doing yourself such as not following Ms. Ellison's instructions to hide money in a pile of wood, and to hide it in a tree instead. It's interesting how they have you meet a Maine native who lives near your uncle at the beginning of the story, and what you may find out about your uncle, Jason, when you go to visit. Each important detail you read about at the beginning of the book could be related to an ending you end up with such as how Jason, your uncle, writes his unfinished book, how a stranger you meet, Isaac Cairns, may come into play later on, and if you meet an Indian named Henry. There are some possibly imaginery scenarios with a time warp or spirits involved in a few endings, but it is not overdone as it usually is in many books. There's just enough to keep the flow of the story going. What makes this book stick out to me is that I noticed that the book was dedicated to one of the author's sons, in which her son taught the author that "Sometimes what we fear is what saves us." One of the endings was purposely written for her son with that quote, and it doesn't come off as cute, but it comes off as impeccable writing. I also like how not all the endings are good as in some cases, especially with the children's series, but that there are some reasonably good endings. There are a lot of possible surprises that I won't give away such as what is "Old Treis Pied" and who are "Sarah and Benjamin" but it is one of the best books in the series to read.