I read from one of the books none of the kids had read. I'd originally planned to read one that corresponded with the craft below, but they had all read it, so we voted on one to read.

We had a cheese-tasting. I brought in fresh shredded parmesan, feta, gorgonzola, and fontina cheeses, and they tried each of them. (Feta was the overwhelming favorite...gorgonzola not so much) We also had cheese-its.

For our craft, we ended up rolling newspaper into tubes and building pyramids (from the Egyptian book, can't remember the title).

It was lots of fun!

Other ideas that were sent:

We have just completed a programme based around the Geronimo Stilton books. This programme was flexible enough to take around all the libraries in our system, regardless of size. The programme began with a reading from the first Geronimo Stilton title (about 5 minutes). We then played several games, which we adjusted to newspaper slant. This programme took an hour from beginning to end. The main activity was to create a wanted poster, with the children themselves represented as the 'villain'. As the children arrived, we took their photos with a digital camera and while the photos were being down loaded and printed off, we had the reading followed by the games. The first game played we called 'hot off the press' (the hot potato game). The children stood in a circle and passed a rolled up newspaper as fast as they could. A staff member stood in the middle of the circle with their eyes closed. When they called out "stop press", the children had to stop passing the paper. The person holding the paper at that time was 'out'. This continued until a winner was found. The second game we played involved dividing the children into teams. Each team was divided into two stood at opposite ends of the room from each other. The first two players were given two pieces of newspaper each and had to make their way across the room using the newspaper to step on. They were not allowed to stand on the floor. The winners was the first team to get all their members across the room. The games took very little time to set up, and were completed fairly quickly.

The children had a great time (and so did their parents) creating their poster. We created a 'blank' for them to work with. The word 'WANTED' was in large block letters at the top - the children collaged this with small pieces of torn newspaper. There was a space for their photo (black and white) and a space below this for their 'criminal name'. We had cut out words, numbers, $ signs and headlines etc from newspapers so they could 'write' the information on their poster. They loved it, and the results looked so good. They stained their finished posters with tea to give it an aged look. We just were very impressed at the creativity of the 'stories' the children told through their posters.

Scholastic had lent us a Geronimo Stilton costume, and he visited the children at the very end. Geronimo gave them several photocopied Geronimo Stilton word finds, maze puzzles, (also provided by Scholastic) to take home.

We felt that this was a very successful book based programme.

I modified these ideas a little. For the "Hot Off the Press" game, I did not have the children get out. I hate to have them sitting around, not participating. Whoever had the newspaper when the press stopped had to pick out of the fish bowl. I had slips of paper with different things for them to do: eat cheese, scurry around the circle acting like a mouse, dance with Geronimo, etc. I also had Geronimo be the one standing in the middle of the circle yelling out, "Stop the press!"

For the wanted poster, I did not cut anything out myself. I saved old newspapers and let the kids cut out their own words and phrases to give a description of themselves.

I don't know if you have time to check into the Geronimo costume. I checked with our Scholastic rep. She referred me to Costume Specialists. They are based in Ohio, so I don't know if this is the same company that you would use. It only cost $60 to rent the costume and it is very cute.

Jennifer, Try the following website: 

         www.scholastic.com/geronimostilton

Hi

Try making homemade paper, or even yogurt cheese.

Or make things out of newspapers:

http://familyfun.go.com/arts-and-crafts/cutpaste/feature/famf39newspaper /

http://pbskids.org/arthur/parentsteachers/activities/acts/newspaper_craf ts.html

There is also a book called Crafting with Newspapers by Vivienne Eisner with lots of ideas.

You simply must do something with cheese. Serve it, if you do serve food, but also employ fake stuff somehow. Geronimo sprinkles so many cheese references throughout the books. I'm imagining a matching game, maybe half the kids have the name of a kind of cheese stuck on their back, and the other half have something else. Randomly have the kids come up in pairs (one from each group) and have the kids read the silly combinations. Or for a craft, have them make something out of material that you call swiss cheese or mozzarella or stilton or cheddar. What fun your party will be!