The Third Planet from Altair by Edward Packard

In its review of the book, Publishers Weekly called it 'an original idea, well carried out.' In 1976 Packard was able to get the book published by Vermont Crossroads Press. In 1969, and 1970, the William Morris Agency submitted the book on Packard's behalf to several major publishers, all of whom rejected it. The Adventures of You on Sugarcane Island was the exact prototype for books in Bantam’s classic Choose Your Own Adventure series. Many of the possible endings feature an unfortunate demise, although escape from the island is possible if the correct choices are made. In Sugarcane Island, the shipwrecked reader travels around the titular island avoiding dangers at every turn. He explains in the foreword to the book that he developed what he originally called 'the adventures of you' fiction format while trying to think up interesting bedtime stories for his three children (Andrea, Caroline and Wells), though the series in which it was first published was the short-lived (and since forgotten) Which Way line.

Packard wrote one of the first known books of this type, Sugarcane Island, in 1969 and saw it first published in 1976 by Vermont Crossroads Press owned by Constance Cappel and Raymond A. Packard is one of the pioneering authors of the second-person fiction style made famous by the Choose Your Own Adventure series of children's books. He is a graduate of Princeton University and Columbia Law School. Edward Packard (born 1931) is an American author, in addition to his work as a lawyer, essayist,and poet.

The Third Planet from Altair by Edward Packard