Chooseco, publisher of Choose Your Own Adventure® (CYOA) gamebooks, the fourth bestselling children’s book series of all time, has licensed rights to Penguin Random House for a Stranger Things CYOA. Portland-based poet and CYOA writer, Rana Tahir, authored “Stranger Things: Heroes and Monsters” based on the fourth season of the Netflix series. It will be released by Random House Children’s Books (RHCB), a division of Penguin Random House, on April 18, 2023.
“We were delighted to work with the Stranger Things team and RHCB on this project,” CYOA CEO and Publisher, Shannon Gilligan commented “We are big fans of the show and think the nostalgia aspect of our brand is a perfect pairing.”
Gilligan explained that “Stranger Things: Heroes and Monsters” will be the longest CYOA book in their Classic series to date clocking in at 280 pages and more than 25 endings. Like all CYOA books, it is written in the second person. The protagonist is YOU, the reader, who is presented with a series of choices that navigate your way through the book. Gilligan also pointed out that Rana Tahir, previously wrote a CYOA book in their “Spies” series about a British-Pakistani World War II heroine, Noor Inayat Khan. Tahir adapted the plot of the fourth season of Stranger Things for middle grade readers and sidesteps the more mature content from the show. Gilligan added that in “Heroes and Monsters”, you join Eleven, Dustin, Max, Lucas, and the rest of the Hawkins crew in a race to save their friends from unimaginable danger, and along the way you encounter Pennhurst Asylum, the creepy old Creel house, and possibly even the Upside Down. The cover, illustrated by Patrick Spaziante, harkens back to classic CYOAs made famous in the 80s.