Geronimo Stilton Book 23: Valentine’s Day Disaster

Geronimo Stilton Book 23: Valentine's Day Disaster

ISBN-10: 0439691478
ISBN-13: 978-0439691475

Summary:
It was Valentine's Day in New Mouse City, and I couldn't wait to celebrate! I had sent valentine cards to all my friends and family members. But when I opened my mailbox on the morning of February 14th, it was empty! Had everyone forgotten about me? Was I destined to spend Valentine's Day alone in my mousehole, sobbing, with only my pet fish to console me? It was starting to look like a true Valentine's Day disaster!

Review: (Warning: Spoilers May follow)
My Rating: B
Who would have thought it would be possible to make such an engaging and funny story about Valentine’s Day? But here we are. Geronimo plans the biggest, best and most amazing Valentine’s Day party for all his friends but then everything starts to go wrong.

I had hesitations going into this book as, to me, Valentine’s Day can often be reduced to a trivial and trite day concentrating on a media-driven “commercialised” idea of romantic love. As someone who would like to consider every day an opportunity to express my love for close friends and family I was concerned that the story would concentrate on a narrow definition of the day.

I needn’t have worried. Very early in the book there is a fact-page that provides historical background to Valentine’s Day, discusses its relevance to the Roman goddess Juno and then the Christian Saint Valentine. I found this summary to be very informative and it eased my mind that the rest of the story would concentrate on universal love rather than a fairly narrow perception of romantic love.

In Valentine’s Day Disaster Geronimo Stilton responds to a series of accidents that get in the way of his plans to organise the best Valentine’s Day ever, and slowly damage more and more parts of his body. Help comes in the form of Cheesy Lou Sweetsnout who reminds Geronimo that “there is no such thing as bad luck, we each make our own luck”. She teaches Geronimo a mantra of sorts to help him attract positive things instead of negative: “Life Is Beautiful, The World is Marvellous. I Love Everybody.” Needless to say Geronimo tries to feel the love but does not always succeed!

I like that he tried The world could use a little more of this kind of energy!

The illustrations were top notch again as were the various fonts and colors used in the text. The illustrators of the Geronimo Stilton series certainly have a beautiful sense of color and shading, expressed throughout this book wonderfully.

What I Learnt (The Extra Bits):
There are a lot of extras in this volume. As well as the historical background on Valentine’s Day there is information on Cupid, pizza, country music, line dancing and at the back of the book a 10 page section on how to organise a Valentine’s Day party.  Replete with streamers, cookies, games, cards, presents and poetry to make the day extra special for the ones you love.

Tags: Geronimo Stilton, Geronimo Stilton Books