Review: Lost Treasure of the Emerald Eye

Lost Treasure of the Emerald Eye by Geronimo Stilton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I received this book for review through NetGalley. This is the first title in the Geronimo Stilton series featuring the eponymous mouse (I could hardly call him a “hero”, but he is one of sorts) and characters now familiar from the book I read earlier, Geronimo’s sister Thea, their slightly annoying cousin Trap, and nephew Benjamin. In this one, the somewhat cowardly Geronimo is taken out to lunch by his sister Thea who informs him that she has found a map to a treasure island and intends to go find it, and expects that he Geronimo will accompany her. She also decides that cousin Trap will join them since he knows all about sailing. So off they go on a rather long sea voyage to the island where the treasure lies. But the journey isn’t the only adventure, once there, they must interpret the map and find the treasure. Geronimo isn’t the most adventurous of mice but in this one, he did quite well, once he got there.

This was another quick (just took half an hour or a little more) and enjoyable read. As far as the adventure itself goes, this one definitely had much more substance than the previous book I read, in which they seemed to be in-and-out of their destination in pretty much the blink of an eye. I thought the end pretty good fun too, with a nice surprise element that I wasn’t expecting. This one, as the other book I read, was replete with rat/mouse and cheese references which add a cute touch to the whole book, but still it felt as though it went a tad overboard with these but not so much as to be annoying. I enjoyed the illustrations and maps, and also in places how the book plays around with the font to make it more effective. I’ve been reading some criticism of these books, as being not worth the hype, etc., and it not being clear why children are crazy about them to the extent that they are. While I couldn’t really answer the second question, I thought (yes, I’ve only read two so far) while they aren’t books that I absolutely adored or which floored me, they are creative, light, fun, and entertaining reads, so they have value as that. Good fun.

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