Potential lead for the Geronimo Stilton eBooks.
According to this (link - https://wayback.archive-it.org/15697/20060509135313/http://www.italianisticaonline.it/e-book/dossier\_05.html):
The Italian publisher of Geronimo Stilton, Edizioni Piemme had been releasing PDF versions of Geronimo Stilton's Illustrated Tails and it's companion Geronimo Stilton's Humorous Tails since October 2000 as stated through this text:
La Piemme di Torino ha prodotto (da ottobre 2000) i primi e-book italiani in formato PDF (per Adobe eBook Reader) per ragazzi, che hanno come protagonista il simpatico topo Geronimo Stilton, giornalista, che dirige "L’Eco del Roditore". I libri sono acquistabili anche nel tradizionale formato a stampa. Al topo Geronimo è dedicato un intero sito internet. Un modo divertente per introdurre i più giovani alle nuove tecnologie digitali nel mondo del libro. Ovviamente, la consultazione del sito, la procedura di acquisto dell’e-book e la sua lettura presuppongono di necessità la presenza attiva dei genitori.
When translated into English, it reads this:
Piemme of Turin has produced (since October 2000) the first Italian e-books in PDF format (for Adobe eBook Reader) for children, whose main character is the friendly mouse Geronimo Stilton, a journalist who runs "L'Eco del Roditore". The books can also be purchased in the traditional print format. An entire website is dedicated to Geronimo the mouse. A fun way to introduce the youngest to new digital technologies in the world of books. Obviously, consulting the site, purchasing the e-book and reading it necessarily presuppose the active presence of parents.
That means at one time, you could buy the eBook from the site itself but why do they always refer to this "traditional print format"? I suppose they were published on print at one time or they could possibly also refer to digitalized versions of already in-print eBooks.
However there is a lot of doubt with the content of the eBooks. Mainly for two reasons:
- The number of pages for a certain printed Geronimo Stilton book at that time was always a lot less than 300 (the amount of pages in the eBooks) although this may include character profiles from the interactive features.
- One very likely theory could be that they initially planned a printed version of the eBooks but eventually cancelled and moved onto other projects due to the character's rising popularity.
So far, I am happy to delve into the world of this obscure character who is sadly ignored on YouTube. I hope our biggest search ever yet could help promote this character further.