The Curse of The Cheese Pyramid by Geronimo Stilton, reflection by Jenna Schlobohm

The Curse of the Cheese Pyramid is a short chapter book that is part of a series by Geronimo Stilton. When I first saw this book I thought that it was silly and probably nothing I would want to read. However, the second graders I am with on Friday mornings are reading it during their morning story time. I was asked to read a couple chapters aloud to them last week, they were in the middle of the book so I was lost in the story line but the little bit that I did get to read interested me enough to buy the book myself and read it. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the story. The series is a fantasy about a newspaper production called The Rodent’s Gazette that is run by a family of mice. Geronimo Stiliton is not only the author of the book but also the main character who goes on many different adventures trying to find stories for his paper. In this particular story Geronimo is sent to Egypt by his stingy uncle, who is also his boss at the paper. His uncle loves money but hates spending it, the mice employed at the Rodent’s Gazette suffer as a result of their uncle’s selfishness. The story follows Geronimo as he explores Egypt and discovers a story on a mouse scientist who has found a new way to create energy from camel “dung”. The story ends with Geronimo announcing that he wrote a book on his adventure in Egypt and called it “The Case of the Cheese Pyramid”. Not only was the mouse the main character and narrator of the story, he also became the author of the book which I believe would allow the children reading the story to feel more connected to the story even though it was a fantasy about mice.
This story has great illustrations to go along with it, before and after the story there are labeled maps of the New Mouse City, the setting of most books in the series. Although these pages were interesting to look at I was most excited about seeing the radical change characteristics through out the chapters. The book is an excellent example of changing forms and formats, certain words were written in a variety of text, colors, and sizes that emphasized the meaning of the word. For example in the sentence “Then all of a sudden the plane began shaking” (p.38) the word shaking was written in bold squiggly letters. The text often illustrated the actions of the story, for example, when Geronimo explains the path of the plane that he is riding in travels he says that “the plane circled over the ocean…” (p. 46) where the words the plane circled were written with the words actually making a circle on the page.
This book is currently being used in a second grade classroom as a read aloud story every morning. The children in the class are very responsive to the story, they laugh out loud at the humorous actions of the mice and answer questions posed by the teacher before and after the reading session. I would personally use this story to try and connect to the children through their various interests. Like I said, I would not have originally chosen to read a book about cheese and mice but the students might very well be interested in animals and adventure stories. The story also touches on energy use and Egyptian history, both of which are topics that could be discussed and explored further with the students.