Italian literature phenom visits Iowa

Get ready to hear a lot more about a celebrity who visited Iowa this week — at least if you have kids in school. Geronimo Stilton, a kid’s literature phenomenon in Italy, is a fictional mouse who’s sweeping the U.S. and other countries. Beth Dunfey is an editor with Scholastic.He’s published many books and she says Geronimo has many degrees, and with all the books he’s published on Mouse Island, they wanted to publish them in this country. The books and the fictional character credited with writing them are helping present a voter-education program being offered to schools this year. It’s called “Kids Vote,” asking for kids’ opinions on many topics. She says Geronimo’s a spokesperson for voicing kids’ opinions, reading and writing since he’s been doing that he was a very young child — or a young mouse. The costumed character made a stop at Des Moines International Airport Monday, part of a nationwide tour promoting the Kids Vote program. Scholastic released four books by Geronimo Stilton, translated from the original Italian, in the U.S. last month and will add another title each month. The Geronimo Stilton books have been translated into 35 languages and in Italy they’re outselling Harry Potter. You can read “The Rodent’s Gazette” on-line at http://www.scholastic.com/titles/geronimostilton/index.htm