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Jan 26, 2020DW_kcls rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
'Christmas Catastrophe' is my first experience with Geronimo Stilton. On the advice of our children's librarian, I broke my rule of 'read before buying' and purchased the first two in the series for a young grand. I'm not sure I would have had I read it. 'Christmas Catastrophe' is a mixed bag. It is not a Christmas book in any sense of the holiday. I have found no rhyme or reason why certain words are highlighted on each page. The main character is kind of a whiner and not what I expected. On the other hand, there is a story. There are also maps, visual dictionary pages, definitions, explanations, jokes, crafts, recipes, tips and diagrams. Whew. It's definitely not the kind of book Grandma or Dad read. I'm not sure a good story needs to be complicated with so many diversions. At that age my kids were reading Judy Blume, Gary Paulson, Madeline L'Engle, Scott O'Dell, and some short Hemingway stories. Surely there is a higher bar between the extremes for our children today. While I think young adult authors are really standing out with their writing, the authors for this age group are hiding behind jokes and page fillers, albeit sometimes interesting and informative page fillers. They need to give young readers more credit than they are. This type of book is clearly fun, but I don't think it lends itself to a love of reading for its own sake, which is how I became a reader, how their dads became readers and what I want for my grands. I still remember titles from 60 years ago . . . will this kind of writing be remembered? 3 Stars