Book Recommendations 好書推薦

Geronimo Stilton series

by Elisabetta Dami

Recommended reading ages: 7-10 years
Lexile measure: 450L-670L

The Geronimo Stilton series are a wildly popular collection of children’s books by Italian author Elisabetta Dami. They follow the life of the mouse Geronimo, a newspaper writer and editor. Dami creates an imaginative humanlike society of mice, a playful lens through which children can learn about the world. For example, Geronimo lives in ‘New Mouse City’, an imaginative version of New York City: readers visit the ‘Mouseum of Modern Art’, newspaper headquarters, the Statue of Liberty and many more cultural and historical landmarks. Geronimo even encounters ‘Hercule Poirat’, a reference to Agatha Christie’s famous detective character Hercule Poirot. The books also follow Geronimo’s travels, introducing readers to the geography and history of Japan, Australia, Italy, India and other countries around the world. In this way Dami combines cultural knowledge and fun to introduce young readers to various bits of history, culture and literature.

Why We Recommend

The Stilton books feature colourful illustrations, and most notably, text designs emphasising specific words. These not only make the books visually engaging but also allow young readers and English learners to pinpoint stressed words in sentences. See, for example, in the image attached “You’ll find lots of EXCITEMENT there”. Readers are immediately drawn to the crux of the sentence (“excitement”) through an appealing visual aid. This makes the Geronimo Stilton series a perfect companion for young English learners transitioning into independent longer reading.

Dami’s characters also make wonderful role models for young children. Geronimo is patient, earnest, friendly, and intelligent — he is also shy, sometimes clumsy and often silly! Children will be quickly drawn to his relatable, open character. Thea, Geronimo’s sister, is an adventurous, witty, fearless female heroine. She features frequently in the series, and is also the main character of Dami’s spinoff Thea Stilton series, a fantastic collection for kids looking for more Stilton stories!

Recommended books to begin your Stilton reading journey:

1. Lost Treasure of the Emerald Eye
2. The Curse of the Cheese Pyramid
3. The Phantom of the Subway
4. The Treasure of Easter Island
5. Kingdom of Fantasy
6. Bollywood Burglary
7. Race Across America
8. Phoenix of Destiny: Special Edition from the Kingdom of Fantasy Series
9. Stilton Spacemice
10. The Journey Through Time

​Questions and Activities for Readers

Incredibly valuable is the wide world of the Stiltons that has built up around the books — not only are there hundreds to read in the series and its spinoffs, but the Geronimo Stilton website is a great resource for interactive engagement with the stories. Kids can play informative and creative games (such as ‘Traveling with Thea’, where they can complete her travel diary), read bonus online stories, decode secret messages, and even write their own articles for Geronimo’s newspaper. Introducing young readers to the Geronimo Stilton series is thus a fantastic way to instil a love of reading, improve language skills and encourage active creative participation.​

Looking for more?

We will regularly share our recommendations on books, with a variety of topics, for different ages as well as reading levels. Follow our blogs to pick books for your kids and develop their lifelong reading habits as young as possible. You’d also join our camps of Literature, writing class, English Journalism, and other humanity camps like Ancient Greece/ Greek Myth for ages 5 to 7, and 8-12. There’s also Storytelling for younger ones, age 4-6.  
萊特豪斯的主題單元"好書推薦"，您可以根據孩子喜歡的主題、年紀或是閱讀程度，選擇合適的英文書籍閱讀。歡迎訂閱我們的部落格，或是追蹤我們的社群軟體，以獲得最新的好書推薦! 也可以加入我們的閱讀俱樂部、寫作營, 、英語寫作記者營，或其他像是古希臘文化/希臘故事營來培養孩子的寫作閱讀能力，另外，我們也有提供更小的4-6歲孩子英文聽故事的活動。

The article is written by Noa Shmueli

​About Noa
Graduated from Taipei European School, Noa is now majoring in English at Columbia University and Trinity College Dublin. An avid reader and writer, she was the Editor-in-Chief of the TES student magazine, PEAK, and have been editing textbooks and essays since 2016.

Image source: https://www.amazon.com/Geronimo-Stilton-Complete-Collection-Books/dp/B008A18NIC