Blog Post #8: The Peculiar Pumpkin Thief

While picking out books, this was one of the books I really wanted to read during Halloween time. However, it got lost in my backpack so I figured better late than never! I know they say not to judge a book by its cover, but I did with this one. It is so colorful and very eye-catching. "The Peculiar Pumpkin Thief" is by Geronimo Stilton and illustrated by Lorenzo Chiavini.

First off, just by opening this book anyone would be intrigued. The illustrations are very in depth and so colorful. Not only are the pictures colorful, some of the words throughout the text are bolded and colorful. Every page is unique with different colors, designs, and pictures. While reading this books I wanted to keep reading to not only see what happens but to also see the colorful pages. Here is a picture just to show the amazing artwork and time the author and illustrator put into making this books.

"The Peculiar Pumpkin Thief" starts out by describing who each main character is. I think this is a great idea for students who have trouble following along at beginning of books, this way they already know the main characters before beginning. The book takes place in New Mouse City at a newspaper company  with four main characters, Geronimo Stilton, he is the editor of the famous The Rodent's Gazette, Thea Stilton is Geronimo sister and she is the special correspondent of the newspaper, Trap Stilton is Geronimo and Thea's cousin, he owns the Cheap Junk for Less store in town, and finally Benjamin Stilton is then in year old nephew of Geronimo. At the beginning of the book, Geronimo and Benjamin are shopping for decorations for a Halloween party Benjamin wants to have, they got all their stuff they thought they needed and went to head home. The next day, they realized that they forgot something at the Halloween store so they headed back, but once there they found the owner sitting in an empty store, the owner then explained that they are robbed and the took everything in his store. Then Geronimo decided to go uptown to the other Halloween stores and noticed they were all robbed as well. Geronimo decided to head up to his friend's office who is a detective and tell him he wanted to help him solve the mystery in town of the missing Halloween decorations. Geronimo gets his gang together and they venture through New Mouse City to find the culprit.

This book was one of the cutest books I've read. While looking for a picture of the cover I learned that this is a series of books and I would love to read more of them. Throughout the book, some of the pages are maps of the city or the tower they are investigating in, or some of the pages are just all pictures so the book is a lot smaller than I assumed. Also, they have activities in the back of the book you could do as a class. I'm so impressed with this book, the author and illustrated put so much time into it. I would be interested to find out if the other books in the series are based on solving a mystery or more towards the newspaper agency Geronimo works for.