Mission Rome

Bought this for my grandkids who spent a month in Italy over the summer. They loved trying to figure out each problem.

This book kept our 10 year old so engaged during our trip to Italy. We spent hours in museums because she was determined to get all the points. When we had free time in cities, she asked to work on more points, so she could complete the mission. Such a lifesaver, it was really perfect for her and us! Highly recommend!!

Our 3 kids, aged 5, 8 & 9 were so thoroughly enthralled with this book, it completely made our trip. My husband said we could not have been there without it. The kids were leading us to sites, excited to go to the next one, and we were all learning fun facts. We all made up spy names as directed and when our jet-lagged cranky kids woke up from a nap, rather than whine around, they got themselves ready and said, Let's go to Trevi Fountain, we need some more points! At the Coloseum, another mom asked me where I found the book keeping my kids so in tune. It easily bought us as the parents, extra time at each of the sites we visited, more than we would have had before meltdowns otherwise. If anything, we were getting tired out from finding all the facts -- and we went to 2 more sites than we had planned to visit just because the kids wanted to keep up their missions. We broke the spine of it from over-use on our 3rd day! I recommend this to families of all ages. We did not book guided tours at many of the attractions and this filled the gaps of giving the kids the very basics of each site (much more than they would've lost attention). My younger ones needed help reading, but this is probably good through tweens/young teens. We will definitely look for more of this series in other cities.

This book kept my kiddo occupied on our trip and made schlepping him around Rome much more bearable. Thank you for staving off the “I’m tired! My feet hurt!” So worth it.

Our 7-year-old had an opportunity to travel to Rome with us, but wasn't that excited because he didn't know what to expect. We were so thankful to find this book -- it helped him learn about each of the places we visited by making it into a game. We spent time reading ahead to where we would visit next to be sure we knew what to look for. Having a bit of an understanding of each location in advance ensured that he was engaged in each location. He had a blast, achieved his 100 points, and is eager to travel again. Plus, as a parent, I appreciated that we could achieve the mission without going to every location in the book and that there were some activities where we could award the amount of points we wanted. We will absolutely purchase other books in this series for future travel, and I recommend it to anyone traveling with kids.

If you have tween kids and are heading to Rome, this book is a godsend. Let's face it, churches and museums aren't that interesting when you're a kid, but this book's "missions" are just comprehensive enough to keep an 8-11 year old occupied at most of the city's famous sites, while not overwhelming him or her with information. Our daughter is 9 (and 1/2, as she reminds everyone) and has been racing around the city trying to amass as many points as possible. We definitely have seen some things that I doubt we would have without the information in this book. Take, for instance, the obelisk in the Piazza della Minerva around the corner from the Pantheon. Do you know what animal is supporting this particular obelisk? Neither would our family, if not for Mission Rome!While seemingly designed for tweens, I think this book would also be a great buy for slightly older or younger kids. The older ones might act like they're too cool, but I'm betting they'd get some useful information and amusement from it while the younger ones would definitely enjoy it, perhaps just a bit less independently from their parents.

Mission Rome is the third "Mission" book our family has completed (last summer we completed Amsterdam and Paris). We traveled with four children, ages seven to twelve. The Mission books give the kids a sense of purpose when we travel and distract them when they get cranky. We use metro rides or lunchtime to preview the next area that we're headed to and read the information in the book. I'll admit that occasionally the adults have to pull their interest in, but we motivate them to find all of the points with promises of gelato. They get pretty excited when they find what they're looking for. I appreciate how the books painlessly weave learning into the tasks so the kids are picking up a little history as they go. We only wish that there were more Mission books available.

we went on a 2 week European vacation where we saw/did A LOT!!!! we were worried that our son would get very bored while we looked at all the museums and history and such. these books (we bought one for each city we visited) were a God send!! He read the book on the way there to prepare for his "hunt" then he was very attentive to EVERYTHING around us, looking for his clues, monuments, etc. At one point, he even told us some facts that he learned from the book that we didn't know! To the makers of this, PLEASE write more for other places, I LOVE THESE!!

This is the second book I’ve read in the Scavenger Hunt Adventure series and I can say that I continue to be very impressed. The quality of the text and illustrations is equally excellent, and the attractive, colourful presentation will draw children in and keep them enthralled. The cover is bright and cheerful, with wording and illustrations indicative of the general theme. As with Mission Paris, Mission Rome is aimed at children in the 8-11 years age range, but would equally suit older teenagers. Adults, too, could certainly use the book as a tour guide.The main objective of the book is to give children something interesting and exciting to focus on whilst on holiday with their family. Two maps are located at the front, one showing the location of Italy globally, the other depicting Rome’s situation within Italy. The mission rules are also clearly listed here.Tasks and investigations are presented in a lively and fun way, the successful completion of each resulting in the allocation of points - the ultimate goal being to reach a score of 100. Reaching this goal enables participants to become a Secret International Agency (SIA) special agent. Parents/trusted adults are asked to perform the role of case officers, and must accompany the children and supervise them during the tasks. The final decision regarding point awards is also at the discretion of case officer.SIA special agents secretly collect intelligence from around the world. The books present agents as holding a privileged position – which should certainly appeal to children’s imagination and competitiveness. The book encourages children to give themselves a special code name (like 007) and stresses that ‘only a few have what it takes’ to join. How exciting is that?There are fifteen missions to accomplish, all clearly listed on a Contents page, which allows agents and case officers to navigate easily through the book, along with a list of mission rules. The missions are varied and exciting, and include historical information about each location. Most of the major sites around Rome are visited, starting with the Forum. Others include Capitoline Hill, the Colosseum and the Sistine Chapel. The missions aim to help develop many useful skills, including map, plan and photo analysis and interpretation, problem solving and interpretation of data – all done in a really fun way. The children are also encouraged to carefully record and store their intelligence or ‘intel’ – the word used for a spy’s discovered information.The final mission is an ‘Anytime Mission’. Would-be agents are advised to read this one through carefully before starting on the rest. These tasks can be completed at various sites around the city – at any time - so children are urged to put their ‘situational awareness’ into practice – meaning they should always be ‘on alert’. Included are fun things such as sampling pizza, speaking a few words and phrases in Italian to hotel or restaurant staff and examining and describing an Italian Euro coin.Answers to all the missions are at the end, so all case officers can check carefully before allowing the award of points! A final mission, to take an excellent photograph, is presented as a competition. Entries can be posted online to the given website – with a prize being offered the winner.From the perspective of a former geography and history teacher, I have found this book to be an excellent resource for a city study. As a travel lover, I see it of enormous value to families on a city break to Rome. Other books in the series include missions to London, Paris, Barcelona and Washington, D.C. and more are to follow. I look forward to reading them.

My kids are 10.5 and almost 12 and this book turned our trip into an adventure. They literally wanted to get every single point available in the book. That meant that when we went to a museum, they were very engaged in finding certain things instead of just aimlessly wandering (or putting up with mom and dad). They learned a ton as did the adults. One of my favorite places was the church of San Clemente which we wouldn't have considered going to except it was included in the book. (By the way, there is a yummy gelataria across the street from the church. Definitely worth a visit!) We live near London and I'm going to buy the London book because I think we will learn a lot by having it. I would recommend this book to anyone with kids. I think the best age group would be 8-14. Also, we told the kids that for every 30 points we'd have gelato. There are about 180 points in the book, so you might want to make it a bit more difficult! Or not.

I bought this book for my daughters aged 6 and 11. It really was the best thing I could have done for this trip. This book really brings Rome to life for children (and adults) and gives them really interesting things to look for and facts about each part of Rome they may visit. Will be buying more of these for other city breaks. Thank you to the authors for such a brilliant addition to our holiday.

A must for anyone with children visiting Rome, was invaluable keeping our girls interested in all that we were seeing. There was a lot of excitement over collecting points and finding interesting things both historical and cultural. Weirdest pizza topping we found was chips! To be honest it had enough explanation for most adults too. 😁

We have returned from a great 5 day family break in Rome. We arrived in Rome without much of a plan but luckily had Mission Rome in hand. What was different about this trip was rather than us parents telling our kids where to go and what to see, they were full of enthusiasm and planning the day out themselves by following this book - and we were happy in going along with their plan. This book is clever since it covers all of the major sightseeing sites, it includes some history, lots of spotting objects which means our kids were genuinely becoming interested in these places - This is the 1st time our kids were begging us to visit museums! The book includes fun tasks too.We felt the only thing missing from the book was a simple map; this would have helped our kids to understand the location of the sights within the city.