Book Review: the Geronimo Stilton chapter book series, by Geronimo Stilton

Pictured here is Lost Treasure of the Emerald Eye, Book #1 of the Geronimo Stilton chapter books - the international best-selling children's book series published by Edizioni Piemme of Milan, Italy, since 2000. Scholastic has published the English version of this series since February 2004. So far, readers have been delighted by 35 titles, with the latest scheduled for release in 2009. The series is aimed at the 9-12 year-old set, and has been translated into 35 languages.

Summary:

"Author" Geronimo Stilton talks directly to the reader, chronicling his adventures in each book, as well as being sure to point out that adventure is precisely not his cup of tea. Still, he gets dragged into one fantastic romp after another. Usually, these (in his view) disastrous encounters involve his sister Thea, cousin Trapp, and nephew Benjamin, but other family members and friends and enemies also make appearances from time to time.

One can expect several constants in each book, despite the variety of predicaments Geronimo finds himself in. The text is sprinkled with words of varying fonts, sizes and colors. Funny puns, similes and metaphors abound. Sentences are short and to the point, yet full of action and description that move the story along at a rapid pace. Each book includes fun informative articles here and there - written by Geronimo, of course, and illustrated, to boot - that provide the reader with relevant background on the places he goes and the things he writes about. The cartoon illustrations are bright, colorful, funny, and complement the text perfectly. 

To help in sorting out all the characters and places Geronimo writes about, readers will find, right at the beginning of each book, a labeled drawing of each mouse at The Rodent's Gazette. At the end of each book, Geronimo includes an author biography, as well as labeled maps of The Rodent's Gazette Building, New Mouse City, and Mouse Island.

For Teachers and Librarians: Though the Geronimo Stilton series is aimed at ages 9-12, your smaller guys and gals will delight at hearing Geronimo's antics read aloud, and will enjoy looking at the pictures, reading the maps, and even following along with the text to discover the fancy fonts. You can do so much with this series for those younger readers, and the target ages, and even kids who are a little bit older, and there are 35 different adventures to choose from. Map reading skills come into play, research skills, geography, history, sports, manufacturing, story elements, food, wild west towns, islands, travel, paleontology...even stolen identities! You really can't go wrong. Grab a Geronimo Stilton book (or two, or thirty-five) and get it into your classroom. Your students will thank you, and you will have a wealth of material to choose from. And besides all the educational possibilites, these books are a riot for the kids!

For Parents, Grandparents and Caregivers:

If your little guys (and even your bigger guys) have a funny bone, this is a series you have to get into your home. Geronimo Stilton is a mouse, and he writes all about his adventures, making sure his reader knows he would much rather have a quiet cup of tea in his comfy chair at home. Your kids will laugh out loud at the antics of Geronimo and his family as they wrangle their way out of countless impossible and action-packed predicaments. Great to read aloud, and fun to read on their own, this series of books is one the kiddos will not want to stop reading.

For the Kids:

Did you know there's a mouse out there that runs a newspaper, and writes books? Well, there is, and his name is Geronimo Stilton: a 'fraidy mouse who somehow ends up in all kinds of wild places and funny spots, all thanks to his loud but loving family. There are 35 books, and each one has a different adventure to read about, like the one where Geronimo gets stuck fighting a bull in the wild, wild west. Then there's book where he ends up shipwrecked on pirate islands. Oh, and of course there's the one where he ends up in the middle of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, and they discover dinosaur bones. But don't take my word for it - ask your parents to take you to the library or your bookstore, get one (or two, or more) Geronimo Stilton books, and get reading (or ask someone to read it to you). You'll be so glad you did!

Overview:

Fun, fast, and packed with adventure, the Geronimo Stilton books are a must read, sure to become children's classics someday.

Title of Book One: Lost Treasure of the Emerald Eye

Author: Geronimo Stilton

Illustrators: Matt Wolf, Mark Nithael, and Kat Stevens

Pages: 128

Reading Level: Ages 9-12

Publisher and Date: Scholastic, Inc., February 2004

Edition: Mass Market Paperback

Language: English

Published In: United States

Price: $6.99

ISBN-10: 0439559634

ISBN-13: 978-0439559638

"Author" Spotlight: Geronimo Stilton

Geronimo Stilton - a spectacle-wearing, mild-mannered mouse - is a best-selling author and publisher of The Rodent's Gazette newspaper. Online issues of The Rodent's Gazette can be found on the Scholastic website. 

Mr. Stilton is a self-described "fraidy-mouse" who prefers a calm, quiet, comfortable life to one filled with adventure. He hates to travel, as he gets airsick, carsick, and seasick. 

And yet, he is constantly finding himself in the midst of one heart-pounding adventure after another, along with his sister Thea Stilton (an adventure-loving photographer), his annoying jokester cousin Trapp Stilton (owner of the marketplace Cheap Junk for Less), and his favorite nephew Benjamin Stilton (a nine year old mouse hoping to work with his favorite Uncle Stilton someday). He chronicles these adventures in the popular Geronimo Stilton chapter book series.

According to the bio page included in each book in the series, Geronimo Stilton was born in New Mouse City, on Mouse Island, and lives there still. He is Rattus Emeritus of Mousomorphic Literature and of Neo-Ratonic Comparative Philosophy. He has run The Rodent's Gazette - New Mouse City's most widely read daily - for the past 20 years. In his spare time, Mr. Stilton collects antique cheese rinds, plays golf, and tells stories to his favorite nephew Benjamin.

Sources:

Geronimo Stilton - Wikipedia

Geronimo Stilton series - Kidsreads.com

Geronimo Stilton Biography

The Rodent's Gazette - Scholastic

Operation Find the Filth

I was about to embark on a stealth mission. It would be bold. It would be risky. It would most likely fail, but I just had to try. So, I loaded up two kiddos, three suitcases, and one bewildered pet grow-a-frog, then made the hours-long trip to Grandma and Grandpa's house for a week of swimming, playing...and snooping. 

What? Snooping? In my own parents' home? 

Yes.

And what, you may ask, was I planning to snoop for?

Dirt. 

Yeah. But it's not what you think. (What kind of person do you think I am?) I'm not digging for the latest family gossip. It's the actual, germy, need-to-vacuum-it-up kind of dirt that I'm after.

See, I have never found dirt in my mother's house. Never. N-e-v-e-r. Not even when three teenagers lived there - all at the same time. But this trip, I was determined to find some. (Dirt, of course. Not teenagers.) I mean really! No mere mortal can possibly continue to maintain the impossible Cleanliness Utopia that is my parents' home: where dirt never settles, dust never flies, and crumbs never find the table, let alone the floor.

So, one day, after my dad left for work and Mom took the kids out to Walmart (it doesn't take much to please my little darlings), I began my search.

I figured it was best to start at the top, so I went upstairs to the bedrooms. I checked the tops of door jambs and the corners behind doors. Nothing. Not even an hint of dust on the top ledge of the baseboards. 

Same deal in the family room and sitting room. No stray dust bunnies glaring out from beneath the couch. No fuzzy coatings on the photo frame glass. No defiant bits of fluff skating across the wood floor.

Next stop: the bathrooms. No ring in the bathtub - not even a hint of grit as I ran an accusatory finger around the edge. Not even some token soap scum clinging forgotten in a corner of the shower doors. The toilets - the toilets I tell you - gleamed with so much cleanliness, you could eat off of them. (Not that you'd want to, but still, I'm just saying...)

That led me to the kitchen. No little bits of grime in that no-man's-land in that teeny crack where cabinet meets floor. No crumbs and crusts and who-knows-what-else under the stove. Not even the remnants of an old spill or splatter in the fridge.

Nothing.

Even growing up, the most I saw was the occasional clump of dog hair - and that was quickly snatched up - after it left the dog but before it even had a chance to hit the floor. So, I know this failure to find filth of any kind is not the result of a frenzied cleaning spree before The Company comes. (What? No, I don't know anyone who regularly cleans in that manner...) 

And now, here I am again, in this impossibly clean house, wondering why. Why, why, why did I not inherit this cleanliness gene?

But... Wait a minute... What if... OK, stay with me now: I rarely see her actually scrub. I do see her run the vacuum sometimes, but only if I'm quick enough to come running when I hear it turn on. And yet, it's always squeaky clean here... Soooooo...

That's it! Of course! I can't believe I didn't figure it out before! It's gotta be elves. Or sprites. Fairies. Maybe even Brownies - and I mean the little fairie-type creatures you can read about in The Spiderwick Chronicles, NOT the little girls in the brown outfits that dream of being Girl Scouts one day. Don't you see? That has to be it! She has some wee little creatures that-

What? You don't think it's... 

Oh. Really?

*sigh*

I guess mere mortals really can maintain a Cleanliness Utopia. And in my mom's case, it's not virtual. It's real.

And unfortunately, it's not hereditary.

A Natural Lullabye

It's late. 

The rest of the house has long since retired. 

I'm writing, thinking, listening.

A gentle rain tap, tap, taps on the roof above me. The water trickles down the sloped roof, carried along the gutters until it cascades down, down through the rainspouts. The lumbering thunder rolls in the distance. The occasional flashes of lightning disappear as quickly as they arrive, a sharp contrast to the comforting blanket of darkness. 

The stage is wonderfully set for a blissful night's sleep.

With that, faithful readers (and new readers, and accidental-but-I-hope-you-stick-around readers) I bid you goodnight. I just can't resist taking advantage of this most fortunate set of circumstances...

               ...to sleep...

                             ...to dream...

Calling All Lefties! August 13 is Your Day!

All these years, I thought August 13 was special because it's my Aunt N's birthday AND it is my friend and one-time fellow Beastie Girl's birthday. (Yeah, I used to love the Beastie Boys. I make no apologies.)

Anyway, I have come to find out August 13 is also special because it's Left Handers' Day. Yes, there's a day to celebrate left-handedness. Who knew? And, not only is there a whole day dedicated to all things lefty, there's a website, too: Left-Handers' Day 2008. I kid you not. Whether you are a lefty or a righty or an ambidextry, you have got to check it out. It is a veritable cornucopia of fascinating information and fun stuff and quizzes and surveys, and help for left-handers. 

But wait, there's more. On that website is a page all about the Left-Handers Club, formed in 1990. Their goal?

"The Left-Handers Club was formed in 1990 aiming to keep members in touch with developments, make their views known to manufacturers and others, provide a help & advice line, to promote research into left-handedness and development of new left-handed items."

If you ever wanted to know what it's like to be a lefty living in a righty world, you will find a wealth of information and fun on Left-Handers' Day 2008. 

Now, in honor of all you southpaws out there, I dedicate this post to all things lefty:

Origin of the nickname "southpaw"

It came about in the late 1890's, when most baseball fields were laid out so that the pitcher faced west and the batter faced east. Well, when a left-handed pitcher threw a pitch, it was with his arm that was toward the south - hence left-handed folks came to be referred to as "southpaws."

Lefty Facts

• Most left-handed people draw figures facing to the right.
• Left-handers adjust more readily to seeing underwater.
• Four of the five original designers of the Macintosh computer were left-handed. (Hey! So that's why the little red x's to close a window are on the left on Macs...)
• Four of the last six presidents have been left-handed.
• In the 1992 US Presidential election, all three major candidates were left handed.

A Few Famous Lefties

• Alexander the Great 
• Julius Caesar 
• Henry Ford - auto manufacturer
• Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin - astronaut 
• Helen Keller
• David Letterman
• Robert Plant
• Michelangelo
• Sid Caesar - comedian
• Kermit the Frog

Folklore and Superstitions

• Throwing salt over one's left shoulder wards off evil spirits.
• An itchy right palm means money is on it's way to you, but if your left hand itches it means you'll be giving your money away.
• When dressmaking, it is believed to be bad luck to sew the left sleeve on to a garment before the right sleeve is sewn on.
• The ancient Zuni considered left-handedness to be a sign of good luck.
• Anyone who digs coal out of the ground from under his/her left foot in the spring will have very good luck.

Did You Know?

• Officials in MENSA (a high IQ society) believe as many as 20% of their members are lefties.
• The first recorded Siamese twins, born in 1811 and joined at the waist, were named Chang and Eng - which meant "Left" and "Right."
• Studies show that left-handers are more likely to have allergies than their right-handed counterparts.
• Using a standard "qwerty" keyboard and typing with both hands as is traditionally done, about 3400 English words are typed with only the left hand, while only about 450 are typed only with the right. Go ahead - try these out: watercress, aftereffects, reverberated...

A Righty-Biased World?

• The intended meaning of "ambidexterity" is "skillful on both sides." But, since it contains the Latin root "dexter," which means "right," it ends up technically meaning "right-handed at both sides."
• "Cultural pressures" for using the right hand were prevalent in industrial societies in the 18th and 19th centuries and even well into the 20th century. 
• Scissors. 'Nuff said.

Left-Handers, Rejoice!

Left-handers have right brain dominance. Soooo:

• They're more likely than righties to be creative and visual thinkers.
• They're generally better at three-dimensional perception and thinking.
• They're usually pretty good at most ball sports and things involving hand-eye coordination.

Happy Left-Handers' Day to all the left-handers out there! May your scissors always cut crisply, may your right hand always itch, and may you never be blinded by flying salt.

Sources:

Famous Left Handers

Left Handers' Day 2008

Unique Left Handed Facts

Left-Handed Myths and Misunderstandings

The Left-Handed Page

Left-handedness

My Door-to-Door Don'ts

Do you remember when you were a kid, and your school/girl scout troop/baseball team/insert-your-group-here sent you home with those fundraising plastic cups, or hoagie order forms, or boxes of candy bars? You went door-to-door to sell them, didn't you? (Unless you were one of those lucky few whose parents worked somewhere with a bazillion co-workers, so they sold, like, thousands of candy bars for you, and you won all the selling prizes, while kids - like me - whose parents said, "It's your school. You sell them yourself" scrabbled together orders for, oh, 32. Maybe. Yeah, I've got a wee little chip there.) 

Thank goodness nobody thinks that's safe for kids anymore. (Can you tell I hate-hate-hated selling stuff as a kid?) Well, now that kids don't sell door-to-door anymore, the field is wide open to everyone else. But, I never buy stuff from people I don't know who show up at my door, for three reasons. One is larcenous, one is villainous, and one is just plain icky-ous: 

The Larcenous Reason:

I don't buy from people who show up on my doorstep asking me to buy magazines, because I'm still waiting for the ones I ordered from those girls who said they were paying their way through college by selling magazines. Oh, that, and they were competing with other college kids to try and win a Spring Break trip if they sold the most magazines. That was 1992. I wonder if they've graduated yet...

The Villainous Reason:

I don't buy from people who show up on my doorstep asking me to buy something big, because of the vacuum salesman that I politely turned down (and did not allow in the house) back in 1998. Turns out, my neighbor across the street called the cops and had him arrested. Why? Well, after I shut my door, said vacuum salesman decided to case my house and try to find a different - and unannounced - way in. 

The Icky-Ous Reason:

I don't give contributions to people who show up on my doorstep asking for charitable donations because of this one year, when a local charitable group (NOT where I live now) knocked on my door well after dark, with flashlights, looking for contributions. Legit or not, that's just creepy.

So, I'm not a big fan of buying from the door-to-door peeps. Buying from brick-and-mortars aren't really my cup of tea, either.

But, that's another post for another time...

Book Review: The Mysterious Benedict Society, by Trenton Lee Stewart

In a city called Stonetown, near a port called Stonetown Harbor, a boy named Reynie Muldoon was preparing to take an important test.

Summary: Reynie's life was about to change, all because of these nine words: "ARE YOU A GIFTED CHILD LOOKING FOR SPECIAL OPPORTUNITES?" Before he knew it, Reynie was standing in a very long line of children all waiting to take that test, which led to another test, and then another, each more mysterious and puzzling than the last. But only four very special children succeed: Reynie, Sticky Washington, Kate Wetherall, and Constance Contraire. They soon discover they've been selected to complete a secret mission that requires the intelligence and resourcefulness that they alone possess. It's a mission filled with mystery, excitement...and danger. Will they accept it? And more importantly, can they succeed if they do?

For Teachers and Librarians: Where to begin? First and foremost, The Mysterious Benedict Society is an excellent story - one that will grab and keep the attention of each of your students. There's something for everyone here: mystery, danger, action, good vs. evil, puzzles, problem-solving, humor...even poetry! Weaved throughout are larger issues about society, power and control, as well as more personal journeys related to self-confidence, self-doubt, inner strength, leadership, trust and friendship. You could branch out into so many different directions, it's mind-boggling. Pick up a copy for yourself and read it. And keep a notebook and pencil right beside you as you read - with the watershed of lesson ideas that will no doubt pour from your mind as you read, you'll be glad you did!

For Parents, Grandparents and Caregivers: Author Trenton Lee Stewart said in an interview with KidsReads.com that the idea for The Mysterious Benedict Society came from his belief that "children are often seen, rarely heard, and always underestimated!" This is definitely a kid-power book. It will show your kids that they are important, and that they have great ideas that are worth listening to and acting upon. They will see that that with hard work and the help of friends and others who care about them, they can do almost anything. The story is action-packed, funny, serious, puzzling, mysterious, sometimes sad, and always surprising. The kids in this story learn a lot about themselves, the world they live in, and the adults who support them. What will your kids get from this story? The possibilities boggle the mind - so make sure to get a copy into their hands as soon as possible.

For the Kids: The world needs saving, but almost nobody knows it. Nobody, that is, except for four kids and the adults who brought them together. And get this: the only ones who can fix what's going wrong is the kids! There is so much in this book to like: a secret mission, snooping around for clues, solving riddles, even figuring out Morse Code. There is danger around every corner, but there's also help around every corner, too - if they can just solve the riddles to figure out what the help is. These are four kids who have the same feelings lots of kids have - they worry about their families, they worry about their friends, they get afraid, they wonder if they're good people and if they're strong enough or smart enough to do what has to be done. They laugh with each other, sometimes they get mad at each other, but they're always there for each other. So, can their friendship survive this most dangerous mission?

For Everyone Else: The Mysterious Benedict Society has a little bit of everything: mystery, action, poetry, humor, adventure, and an epic battle of good vs evil. There's so much to like here, and so many ways for you to identify with so many characters, you'll find it hard to put down...

Wrapping Up:

Title: The Mysterious Benedict Society

Author: Trenton Lee Stewart

Illustrator: Carson Ellis

Pages: 512 pages

Reading Level: Ages 9-12

Publisher and Date: Little, Brown Young Readers, April 1, 2008

Edition: Paperback

Language: English

Published In: United States

Price: $6.99

ISBN-10: 0316003956

ISBN-13: 978-0316003957