Adventure

Summary: The Mystery in Venice (Geronimo Stilton, No.48) is about a mouse named Geronimo Stilton who returns from a trip tired and jet lagged, and just as he is settling down in a bath, receives a call from his true love (Petunia) asking him to go to a flea market with her and Geronimo's sister, Thea. Geronimo goes, despite his dislike for shopping, and his true love, Petunia, buys him an ugly crystal gondola he has seen at the flea market. When he returns home, his cousin Trap bursts in and accidentally shatters the gondola- and it is then that Geronimo finds a note trapped inside asking for help. Geronimo puts himself on the case and discovers the note is from Murano, an island in Venice, Italy, and decides to fly to Venice. When Geronimo arrives in Venice, he realizes he has fallen asleep on the shoulder of a crazy mouse who is now in love with him, and thinks he lives in Venice! In his attempts to escape the "rodent of [his] nightmares," Geronimo meets Twitchy, a young mouse who introduces Geronimo to his Uncle Sharpwhisker, who makes the gondolas the Geronimo found the note inside of. Uncle Sharpwhisker immediately employs Geronimo (who has no idea how to make glass gondolas), when Geronimo hears crying upstairs. He discovers Hope, the author of the note in the gondola, who is sad she can not marry her true love Arnold. Geronimo agrees to help her, and convinces Uncle Sharpwhisker to allow him a reward if he races his gondola and wins the race. Geronimo calls all of his friends, and with some help from Hope's boyfriend Arnold who delivers a new gondola, and in Geronimo's haste to flee from the rodent of his nightmares, Geronimo wins the race! Uncle Sharpwhisker falls in love with the rodent of Geronimo's nightmares, and grants Hope's wish to marry Arnold- Geronimo solves the case!

Personal Connection: I loved this book! I was so surprised to have not yet a book in this series before and definitely want to order them for my classroom! I loved that information was woven into this book throughout the story (mostly about Venice), and that it had bright colorful pictures. I also liked that the author chose to use bright, crazy fonts to emphasis certain text throughout the book.

Extras:
-Personal website: http://geronimostilton.com/

Application to Teaching: I would love to get this series into my first grade classroom! It would be perfect for independent reading for higher levels, and would work great in a series unit (in reading or writing). It would also work well as a read aloud. ( )

Awsome! ( )