Geronimo Stilton Special Edition: Hunt for the Curious Cheese product reviews

My son and I love Geronimo Stilton and reading about all his crazy adventures. He's a bit of an anti hero - a complete scaredy cat that gets by with the help of his family and friends but it really adds to the excitement and energy of the story.

I was a bit disappointed with this book. It felt shorter than usual, rushed and didn't have the same sense of excitement and anticipation that we've come to know from other Geronimo books. It also didn't end where I would have expected it to and it felt kind of odd and unnecessary to the main storyline. It make me wonder whether the author is setting something up for future books perhaps? Regardless it still held my son's attention and he appeared to enjoy it which is really all that matters. The illustrations are bold and colourful and each page is exciting to look at with different fonts and text size adding extra interest.

This book is a special edition and along with a hard cover and glossy gold embellished dust jacket it also includes an extra story - The Mouse Hoax (a mini mystery). My son loves the Geronimo mini mysteries as they really involve him in the story by providing clues and asking questions so that you can help to solve the mystery. They're also short and easy to read - perfect for a bit of light reading. Then if that wasn't enough there is also a couple of pages of suitably 'cheesy' jokes which my son always loves reading.

All in all it's good value for money even if the main story was a bit of a let down and I'm sure we'll read it again regardless.

The Hunt for the Curious Cheese is a beautifully presented special edition book. It comes in hardcover, with a special book jacket that has embossed gold lettering on the front. It looks super flash, and inside you get lots of extras too. You get an extra mini mystery, that has lots of clue following in it. You also get a few pages worth of kid's jokes.

For the first real time, I was reading this book to two children. Miss almost 3 is starting to get into the kid's novels that I read to Miss 7 and so each night, she would come into the room with us and listen to the story about the curious cheese. Miss 7 twigged to what was going on with the curious cheese very very quickly. She was shouted at the book, what they had to do by the second chapter. But the story did manage to keep her interested, as we followed the investigation.

She was quite horrified that someone would act in the way the baddie does. It made her ask a few questions about the food we eat too. I liked the page of information about different foods and what they give your body. It was fun to read out with her, as she would guess what each food offered in terms of vitamins and energy. It was also good information as it gave facts and didn't steer the kids one way or another about what to eat. It's so important that food be treated that way and not bad, especially things like carbs because growing bodies need them.

The mini mystery was fabumouse. There were all these clues to work through, and puzzles as well. She was able to solve some of the anagrams herself which was neat because it showed she had more confidence with her spelling. There was one clue we just couldn't figure out, but I think if I had been paying more attention as I read, then maybe I would have seen the clue reflected elsewhere. Still, we got through the mystery with about 5 clues solved.

With the jokes, I found she was willing to read them with me. So I would ask the question and she would read the answer. For the ones she read herself, she laughed a lot more. Probably because she could see the play on words that goes on for many of those types of jokes. The preschooler enjoyed the pictures and pretending to be a mouse, and she laughed at the jokes though I doubt she got them! Over the week that I have been reading it, I have also caught my eldest "reading" through ahead of us. I'm not sure how much she is actually reading, but she is certainly far more engaged with this book than she has previously been, which is super exciting for me.