Geronimo Stilton, mouse extraordinaire, is off on his first adventure… the first of MANY adventures.  As a quiet business-mouse, he likes his life to be quiet and orderly but his sister, Thea Stilton, has other ideas.  Together with Geronimo’s cousin and nephew, they seek treasure and along the way go through a harrowing sea voyage while learning things about themselves like: they are stronger than they think and more resourceful than they imagined.  Each character is uniquely flawed and very much just like us regular people. 

With font that’s comfortable for young eyes, a little more space between the lines, and creative and bright font here and there, this book might be a good beginning for chapter books for your young reader.  Drawings are thrown in throughout the story to help bring it to life.  The author writes in a way that draws the reader into Geronimo’s adventures and is fun without being frivolous.  The pacing is just right and keeps the reader wanting to turn the page to see what happens next.  This is the young reader’s version of a Clive Cussler adventure.  It might be good for a read aloud to younger children too.  Together Geronimo and Thea have been on about 72 adventures so there’s lots of places to go and “see” in this exciting series.  Altogether, there are at least 186 Geronimo Stilton books that include 13 series and Thea Stilton has her own series too.

Content Analysis:

Profanity/Language:  None 

Violence/Gore:  Food poisoning sends a mouse to the toilet (not nefarious, just bad fish); a young mouse-ling is a stow-away on a ship; a mouse is hit by a sail and thrown overboard. 

Sex/Nudity:  None

Mature Subject Matter:

Food poisoning, a stow-away child, man-overboard.

Alcohol / Drug Use:

None