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Un mundo nuevo - Ginés Ladrón de Guevara

Un mundo nuevo - Ginés Ladrón de Guevara - Algo para traducir

Choose your own adventure is a series of English children's books which was published for almost 20 years in the 80s and 90s. Those of us who were children in those days had the chance to get hold of those books. The originality of them lay in the structure of the story presented. The young reader chose between the different options which were on offer, so they could decide on either a dangerous adventure or they could act more cautiously. And when the adventure was over, they could always go back and start again to discover which other endings await behind the adventure. It lets them be a protagonist and feel like Bastian when he read and experienced Atreyu's adventures in The Never Ending Story. In this book every reader has jumped and quivered at these two adventurous children's every movement, one real and the other from a fantasy world. Both characters won our hearts around the same time when the Choose your own adventure books were released.

Un mundo nuevo is a non-official book about the adventures of the universe of Minecraft. It is the first book of a new collection, written by Ginés Ladrón de Guevara. The second and third instalments will arrive in time for the Christmas holidays. So you don't miss any details about them, you can keep up to date via the website http://eligetusaventuras.es/ or their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/eligetusaventuras2015.

This type of “gamebook”, as they are also known, had stopped being published and produced until few years ago when they started to be reprinted. However, there wasn’t anything new introduced into the market. Consequently, the value of critical thinking and adventure that lies behind Un mundo nuevo is unquestionable. This way it implements the desire to promote the habit and the taste in reading and the pleasure of reading for reading's sake in children and teenagers.

Ginés Ladrón de Guevara has managed to create a great pedagogical and educational piece of work with this book. In a world where technology advances in leaps and bounds and it sneaks in every loophole or crack found in its path, it occasionally relegates books to libraries, Un mundo nuevo achieves a balance between videogames, which is a lot more widespread and accessible than in the eighties and nineties, and reading. The children will feel like they belong to a fantasy world, or a virtual world, where they are their own masters and adults play a secondary role. The child will discover new worlds, characters and ways of real or fictitious life which will allow them to develop their imagination, to extend their vocabulary and to think for themselves. A new world will awaken reflection within them, since the consequences will depend on the choice they make and the discovery of new realities.

The author draws from a basic glossary of terms, which is ideal so that the children who aren't familiar with the world of Minecraft know the beings they are going to confront in their own adventure. There are more than twenty five situations in Un mundo nuevo, in which the reader can decide where to go. In every situation there are between two and four options, which means the adventures multiply exponentially.

Among the villagers, zombies, skeletons, creepers, golems and giant spiders, our little adventurer will penetrate into the universe of Minecraft to look for a village or a forest to collect wood; attack a creeper or avoid it; do basic, necessary mathematical calculations; become a builder or sleep outside; travel by sea or on land; take food on their journey or get it on the way; look for mines; choose which door to go through or which path to follow; how to confront a creeper, a zombie or a spider again; make dangerous or cautious decisions; remember what type of precious stones they have got if they have got any; how to use the magic word and remember which one it was; how to fight with a sword and decide if they should use it or not; what to answer and which strategy to follow. Multiplicity and variety of options.

Just like its author, the language used is direct, fun, contemporary and modern. It is accessible and close to all children. Ginés Ladrón de Guevara explains the meaning of some words on specific occasions by means of a message sent to those little thinking heads “if you don’t know the meaning of something, ask or look it up in the dictionary”. Ginés’ style is highly motivating.

Un mundo nuevo will win the intrepid hearts of the little adventurers which will be done with a copy. These little adventurers will feel special, they will be able to decide their fate and they will go to bed excited about reading again tomorrow.

We can't wait for the next part of the series.

Mª Carmen de Bernardo Martínez

Translated by Sinead Rowley-Smith