Hocus & Pocus: The Legend of Grimm’s Woods

Like Choose Your Own Adventure before it, this new series, Comic Quests, allows readers to make decisions that send the protagonists on a variety of narrative threads. Hocus and Pocus excel in class, where they learn to befriend magical creatures and protect their environment. For their final, they must help two parents locate their two children, John and Margaret, who have disappeared into the Grimm Woods. Now comes the real plot twist: the reader must choose to be either Hocus or Pocus and follow their chosen character’s story, making decisions on that character’s behalf. Among other adventures, readers can accompany Pocus into a den of wolves or choose to follow Hocus into battle with a giant rat. As they follow the bright, colorful panels and emotive characters, readers can collect artifacts along the way, fill out character sheets, and flip back and forth to enjoy the possible iterations. This series opener takes a simple but enjoyable form, mixing literary autonomy with the traditional role-playing video game—the resultant gaming comic promises to delight young decision-makers. Ages 8–12. [em](Sept.) [/em]