Geronimo Stilton #57: The Stinky Cheese Vacation product reviews

When this prize pack arrived my boys had a look through the books and this one caught their attention due to the name of the book. I had a quick read of the book and am rather amused by the play on words used in the characters names.

I started the book and thought it was going to be different, I found the uncle incredibly irritating and deceitful but luckily by the end of the book he had realised that he needed to change and it would not hurt for Geronimo to grow a back bone and learn to say no as he is really soft hearted.

I really like how each story is stand alone so you don't have to read them all or be forced to read them in order so that means we can read whichever book catches our fancy. The stories are short enough so the kids don't lose interest in the book and fast paced so there is a lot happening in the story, you aren't left wondering what happened or how it happened. I also like the illustrations as they are cute and very well done.

I am going to be building up the collection of Geronimo Stilton books for the kids to enjoy as this is a fantastic series.

Geronimo Stilton - that's a name that I only have to mention to get a smile from my 7 year old. She adores this scaredy mouse and all the things he gets up to. He is a mouse who braves all his fears, and lives the most amazing life because of it. I love that he doesn't let things hold him back, and I hope that message gets through for my kids too.

In this book, there is not a great deal of adventure but there is a great deal of work to be done. Geronimo gets suckered into doing a whole lot of work for his uncle. The way he is suckered was a bit nasty. My daughter found the first few chapters of the book very upsetting until we worked out the truth. However, I would caution anyone with sensitive children, that there is a suggestion of death which my kid found very very sad.

Once we got past that little trauma the rest of the book was incredibly fast paced, and actually really engaging. I have been going a bit off Geronimo myself, and as a result these books can drag out. But this one we literally flew through, as much because I was enjoying it as anything else. It is so funny, and on each page the same phrases keep coming up and so my daughter was predicting them as we went along as well.

We were both left laughing quite a bit at the antics, and all that hard work poor Geronimo had to go through. I must admit though, he is a very hard working mouse and if he wants he is welcome to come and visit us for a week. I suspect that he would have this place whipped into shape in less than a week.

Overall, great book - has re-newed my interest in this silly mouse. At $14.50, it's not badly priced and was very entertaining. I suspect I will actually re-read this one too because I want to as opposed to being made to.

We love Geronimo Stilton and there's nothing else quite like it on the market. It's truly unique and each adventure is exciting to read about. The other great thing about the Geronimo books is that they all work as stand alone books and don't need to be read in any particular order.

In this book Geronimo Stilton receives a letter from his Uncle Stingysnout, requesting his presence at Penny Pincher Castle, but what he thinks is going to be a nice visit turns out to be a lot of hard work. Uncle Stingysnout is the biggest cheap skate in New Mouse City and tricks his nephew Geronimo into fixing up the castle.

It's not the most adventurous Geronimo book (read: no hair raising stunts or life or death situations) but it is still fast paced and humorous. Geronimo is as quirky as ever and finds himself in a spot of difficulty where he just can't say no. I love the underlying message of generosity in this book and helping others, even if Geronimo's Uncle uses an underhanded method of going about things - Geronimo ends up being rewarded for his generosity anyway. I also love the detailed illustrations as well as the differing fonts (type, size, colour) used to emphasize some of the words and make the pages look more interesting which really helped to hold my son's attention. The chapters were a little on the long side for my son (age 6.5) so we weren't able to read more than 2 or 3 in one go but that was just right for us for a bit of bedtime reading.

My son and I both enjoyed this book and even with the lack of action it still held his attention well and we'll definitely be reading it again.